God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero
by ef9283
Summary: Shirou Emiya dies betrayed and unhappy with his life after a long stream of personal failures. After being offered a chance to try again in a new world, along with a blessing of his choice, will he come out happy with his life? Or will he repeat his past mistakes? You can probably guess. He's Shirou Emiya. He'll do both.
1. Chapter 1

(Shirou's POV)

"The accused, one Shirou Emiya, stands here today guilty of crimes against the state, charged with treason and multiple counts of murder. Furthermore –"

I zone out as my executioners waffle on about justice and my so called crimes. I had been arrested after a mission the government had sent me on, one I had completed flawlessly, where I dispatched a group of terrorists before they could bomb an airport in a nearby city. Upon my return I had been swiftly arrested and thrown before this pre-determined jury to be dealt the death penalty. I would almost be impressed with the efficiency of their scheme to remove me, as the prosecution began supplying the evidence I had given them to prove my mission was successful, if it weren't for the fact I was a magus and could easily break free and escape. But I wouldn't do so.

I just didn't care anymore.

Since the Holy Grail War all those years ago I had gone from battlefield to battlefield trying to fulfill my foolish dream of being a hero who could save everyone, but in the end all I ended up doing was killing. I had fought dead apostles, magi, terrorists, and armies alike, yet I usually showed up too late to save anyone, left only with the option to kill what was left behind. What few people I would fight to protect would move on to die somewhere else. I was never thanked for my efforts, and in the end every battle, every massacre, was meaningless. And now, betrayed yet again, I just didn't care enough to save myself.

I had utterly failed at my dream.

"-and how do you plead?" The man in front of me asked, safe and fat off the efforts I spent to protect him.

"Guilty." I replied, my mouth moving into a cynical smile.

"Then you are hereby sentenced to death. Approach the platform."

I move forward, my hands restrained with cuffs behind my back, towards the gallows I was to be hanged at. I silently scoffed to myself, could they not find a more archaic form of execution? At least I had avoided the fate of Archer, from the war all those years ago. Perhaps it was due to the changes he made with his presence, but I had never found myself before Alaya, and had not become a Counter Guardian like him. At least I could die in peace.

As the rope was laid under my neck I watched the sky one last time.

In the end, I couldn't save anyone at all.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

I awoke to find myself seated a short distance from another, more regal, seat with a small table next to it. I took a moment to take in my surroundings, my eyes darting around to take in the room I had found myself in. Or, perhaps, room was inaccurate as I could not distinguish and walls around me, nor the source of the light overhead. In fact, if it wasn't so absurd, I would consider myself in space.

"Emiya Shirou. Welcome to the afterlife. Though you did not live a long life, you died a short time ago." A woman spoke as she passed me and took a seat in the chair in front of me. The most striking thing about her was her long blue hair, along with what looked like a pink ribbon that was wrapped around her.

"I admit this was not what I expected to be awaiting me. Who are you?" I calmly replied. Perhaps now that I was dead, Alaya had come to ask for me to serve it? If so I only needed to refuse its offer.

"I am Aqua, a goddess who guides those who die young into the afterlife." She replied, smiling serenely as she checked something in the book next to her. "I am here to offer you your choices for the afterlife."

She was a goddess? Was that a joke? I may not know much about the afterlife, but that seemed strange to me. The age of the gods ended long ago, and beyond that gods were incredibly selfish beings. What would she get out of guiding the dead? Truly I must be cursed, for it seems I would have to deal with deceit even after my death.

"You have two choices, you may either be reborn into the world you left behind, or you may go to heaven to live as an old man. But just between you and me, heaven isn't as great as you mortals believe." She spoke conspiratorially, as if there were anyone else here to hear us. Perhaps there was, that's something to keep in mind. There could be other 'goddesses' around.

"That's fine, I had no interest in heaven anyway." I said, closing my eyes and smirking. What use was heaven to a twisted failure of a hero like me?

"Starting over from the beginning isn't great either." She continued.

What? Why is she talking down my choices?

She leaned forward her small smile turning into a smirk. "So I have a special offer for you, Shirou."

Ah, here it comes. I knew it.

"Are you familiar with video games?"

Eh?

She rose from her seat and began striking poses. "A wonderful peaceful kingdom beset by an evil Devil King and his army! Countless helpless people live in fear of their lives as their homes and families are threatened! They need someone to save them or else they'll be … slaughtered!" A brighter light fell on her, as if she were suddenly on stage.

"Are you mocking me?" I muttered coldly, shooting her an intense glare. I may have been a failure, but I had followed my dream to the end. Was this my fate, for my life to be the butt of a joke, before I was erased? How incredibly cruel of her. I know better than anyone how badly I had failed.

She flinched under my glare, and the light shut off. "No! That world is really under that kind of threat! In fact, it's so bad that the population is declining because no one will agree to be reborn, because they are so afraid of the Devil King. They die horrible painful deaths and decide they would rather just go to heaven."

If it was actually a problem then why would they get a choice? Just about anyone who dies wants to go to heaven, because that's where their family and loved ones are. It was only failures like me who would prefer to be reborn. Suddenly I had doubts about this 'heaven'. If going to heaven meant you wouldn't be reborn, and most people would want to go to heaven, and people need to be reborn for people to be born back on Earth, wouldn't this be a problem without the supposed 'Devil King'? That made no sense.

"So we figured people that died here could be sent there alive and ready to fight! That way people who died young could continue to live, that world would gain fighters to fend off the Devil King, and we wouldn't have to worry about depopulation. Everybody wins!" She finished with a twirl and beamed at me.

Ah, so that was why. The offer of heaven or rebirth was likely meaningless, it was a setup for this choice. Those who chose either heaven or rebirth would simply be reborn, as memories are not carried over through rebirth, anyone who choose heaven would simply be reborn unaware of their choice. The 'goddess' in front of me was looking for me to solve a problem for her.

Or this could be a trap specifically designed for me. After all, I cynically smirk to myself, I am Emiya Shirou, the one who tries to save others. Presented with this choice, even if it is a trap, I end up unable to say no. How could I simply be reborn when presented with my dream and a shot at redemption? If this was a trap created by Alaya or some other being for me it was masterfully done. Still, I could use more information.

Closing my eyes and leaning back in my seat I sigh before finally speaking. "If you could revive me in a different world so easily why don't you just kill him yourself? Or revive a local legendary hero? Why do you need me?"

"Ah, goddesses like me can't interfere with the world like that, it's against the rules." She answers leaning forward and getting in my face. "Please, that world needs your help."

What a blatant lie, and delivered with such a straight face! Reviving me in an entirely different world isn't interfering?! I held my tongue though. If she was willing to lie so obviously I likely wouldn't get any real information out of her. And did it even matter? I had expected my end to be when I died, a forgotten killer for hire who failed in his life, and yet I was being given an offer to try again.

I sigh again, thinking over my life. I had tried to be a hero who saved everyone, and ended up unable to save anyone. If I accepted, wouldn't I just continue as I had been and end up just as unhappy? Perhaps this was my chance to try something different? If only I could be so lucky.

"Very well, I accept." I declare solemnly.

"Excellent!" She exclaims, before taking a couple steps back and getting the book she left behind. "Then before I send you off, I will grant you one boon! One thing you may take with you into this world to help you survive and to defeat the evil Devil King and his army."

"I thought I was taking my body?"

"Of course you will. Your physical body will be moved there as part of our deal and revived. Beyond that, to ensure you are fit for the years to come, you will be returned to the prime of your life. That is not the boon I will grant you in order to succeed in your quest!"

Does that mean I would keep Avalon and the Shroud of Martin? I had been executed on my return from my mission and had died with both of them. That would already be an enormous boon. And what did she mean the prime of my life? While I considered this, she began throwing pages from her book all over the floor.

"You may choose anything to bring with you, and if you have nothing in mind here are some ideas!" She explained.

My eyes scanned the pages on the floor, Legendary Swords, Powerful Artifacts, Special Abilities, and various other things were listed on them. What use were any of them to someone like me? I had legendary swords, I had powerful artifacts. In the end they were all useless due to my own weakness. What here would actually make me able to save people? My mind drifted to when I was at my strongest, that time over ten years ago when I face Gilgamesh. While I had more magic circuits than the average magus with 27, they were all of exceptionally bad quality, and I had been forced to make a contract with Rin in order to have the sheer prana to face him, in order to use my ultimate trump card, the Unlimited Blade Works. There had been many times in my life it would have been useful to use it, but I had lacked the energy for it to be effective. Even now, having spent so much time perfecting it and increasing my reserves, I could only hold it a couple minutes before I was completely drained. Not to mention the weapons I could use with more or better magic circuits. If I had been able to use them, would I have been able to actually defeat my enemies fast enough to help those I'd been trying to protect? If I just had more magic circuits…

"Can you increase the number and quality of the magic circuits I have?" I decide.

At some point in my contemplation she had returned to her seat and was snacking on a bag of chips she had gotten somewhere. Hearing my question, she suddenly froze up breaking the chip she had in her hand and covering herself with crumbs.

"You're a magus…" she whispers, suddenly shivering.

Why the sudden change in tone? "You didn't know?" I asked raising an eyebrow. "I would have thought a 'goddess' would have already known that?"

She didn't seem to hear me though, as she rocked back and forth in her seat.

"Is something wrong with me being a magus?" I tried again.

Hearing the word again she snapped out of her trance and focused on me.

"You a-a-aren't going to attack me yelling about t-the Root are you? Or about Akasha Records?" She stammers out.

Now it makes more sense. Yes, I could see a Magus freaking out and attacking her when confronted with this place. Still, to see that she was apparently traumatized by it was surprising. Simply thinking the word had completely broken her composure, and she was acting like a completely different person.

Suddenly she goes back into her shivers. "I s-started hiding behind that c-chair to see if any one else who came through was a crazy m-m-magus who would attack me and yet o-o-one has still appeared in front of me." She begins mumbling to herself.

I haven't even done anything and I still a little guilty. Perhaps this wasn't a trap for me or some cruel joke?

"If it makes you feel better, I have no interest in pursuing the Akasha Records, and I won't attack you…" I trail off, unsure of what to say.

"You won't?" She mutters to herself, and it seems to help. "You won't. Of course you won't, I'm the goddess Aqua, who would dare to attack me!? They should attack Eris instead! I don't deserve this kind of treatment!" She suddenly exclaims standing up.

What a sudden turnaround, does she have some kind of complex? It might explain why she calls herself a goddess.

She focuses back on me seems to notice what she was doing because she composed herself and retook her seat.

"Yes, I can increase both your magic circuit number and quality. Your boon will be one thousand excellent quality circuits!" She states.

What?! That's way too many!

Suddenly a blinding light appears from under me and I feel myself being lifted from the chair.

"Chosen hero! I pray you will be able to slay the Devil King. Upon your success, you will be granted any one wish as a gift from the gods!"

Wait I don't have time to process this! A thousand circuits are way too many! And I don't have a wish!

"I wish you luck on quest, chosen hero! Farewell!"

Thus I began my journey into a new world.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

It had been a few weeks since then, the day I had appeared in a town called Axel, alive despite my death. With no money on hand and no knowledge of the land I had moved into the nearby forest and made my camp there. From there I began gathering information on everything I could, the city I found myself in, the monsters that prowled around it, the Devil King said to lead them, and the goddess who sent me here. And how could she be anything but a goddess? She had truly revived me in an entirely different world, something that flew in the face of everything I knew about magecraft. I had taken stock of the changes in my body, the fact that my hair that had turned white from the overuse of my magecraft had regained its red shade, that my skin that had been tanned from my journeys through the Middle East had been returned to its natural state. I could feel the change in my own circuits and the power I had no idea how to make good use of it. To someone like me who had been forced to live with next to no reserves, the sudden massive increase left me unsure of how to actually use it.

To adjust, I had begun hunting the local monsters, not just as a source of food or because they were a threat to the locals, but just to try and get a grasp on the strength I had gained. There were all sorts of strange creatures in this world labeled 'monsters' by the local citizens, despite most of them being just large animals or in inconvenient locations. I had found and fought large toads, large wolves, large deer, and once while investigating a local lake some large alligators. In the end though, they were just animals and served as good targets to test my new limits. Occasionally, I would encounter a small caravan or a group of travellers engaged with these monsters and despite my protests that I had done nothing worthy of a reward, I had still accrued quite a few of the small coins this land called a currency, even though I had no idea how much it was actually worth as there was nothing I really needed to buy.

Still, until I felt I had a good grasp on my new strength, I would continue to hunt. That was how I found myself in these grassy hills looking for more toads to shoot with my bow. Their numbers had been increasing the last few days, and thus they had become my prime targets. Lining up another shot, I traced a nameless sword and prepared to fire. With my reinforcement, the 700 meters between us was no obstacle. I could easily take a shot twice as far.

Suddenly, a little to the right and in the distance a bright flash caught my attention, and what was unmistakably the sound of an explosion reached my ears. What was that?

I take the shot, and the toad collapses. I return my attention to the explosion in the distance. What could have caused that? Was it some monster I was unaware off, or had someone in the area caused it? Regardless, that attack had gotten the attention of everything around here, and if I was going to get any answers I would have to investigate. With my mind made up, I reinforce my legs and began making my way quickly in that direction.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

Drawing closer I'm able to make out what looks like a handful of large toads surrounding a lone figure. I blink, why are those two toads looking straight up? Wait are those legs sticking out of their mouths? I retrace my bow and take a few quick shots with some normal looking arrows. That way if I'm lucky I can avoid having to explain why I'm shooting swords from a bow. The toads collapse, and the human rushes to free his companions.

I'm getting close now, and I can better pick out their appearances, as the male in a green tracksuit pulls a young girl in some kind of elaborate robe out of one of the toad's mouths, and their third member starts wriggling free of the other. A tracksuit? I'm almost certain that shouldn't exist in this world, why would something like that be here? And wait, that woman that wriggled out of the other toad, isn't that the goddess that sent me here? The man collapses to his hands and knees panting next to the facedown girl he pulled out. I'm close enough to make out what they are saying now.

"-not worth it! What kind of arch mage can only cast a single spell in a day! We almost just died!" The male exclaims, obviously out of breath.

"I told you. My magic is the most powerful, so using it has completely exhausted me." Came the girl's response.

Beside them the goddess covered in saliva began to cry loudly.

This was a really pathetic sight.

Making note of the smoking crater a short ways off, I announce my presence. "Are you the ones who made that explosion?" The answer was pretty obvious, but confirmation would be useful.

The man seems startled quickly looking up at me. "But you were so far away… how did you get here so fast…" He trails off.

Before I could reply the girl spoke up. "Yes, I was the one who caused that wondrous explosion. I am Megumin, most powerful arch wizard of the Crimson Demon clan, master of Explosion magic, the best of all offensive magic!"

Don't say that while face down on the ground.

"Is that so." I respond deadpan. "Well it certainly caught my attention and…" I drawl off looking around "the attention of every monster in a few kilometer radius." And it was true too. I reached here quickly due to my speed, but the toads, while slow seem quite numerous. Apparently they stayed underground during the day, and the explosion had brought them up in force. I made note of it for when I returned later that if I ran out of targets I could draw more out with explosions.

"Eh…" The male exhaled, looking around and seeing the same thing I was. "Megumin you've doomed us all. We're all going to die here." He says in a completely tone dead voice.

"It seems so. The end is near." She says in the same tone. The goddess next to them starts crying louder.

This may be the most pathetic group of people I've ever seen.

Suddenly the male shoots up. "Wait! You killed all five of these toads with your bow instantly! Can't you save us!" He shouts at me, looking me over. "But where are your arrows…" he trails of looking horrified. "Are you already out!? And why don't you have a weapon! Why is everyone I meet useless!"

That's kind or harsh. The useless one here is you.

"Why don't we just run away? The toads are really slow and we aren't that far from Axel." I speak up, trying to resolve the situation. "You two aren't injured right? And you can still run?" I point towards the male and the goddess. "I'll carry Megumin here and we'll just go back to town." I sling my bow over my shoulder to hide the fact I could just dispel it and bend down, turn Megumin upright, then pick her up bridal style. The slime she was covered in while smelly didn't seem dangerous and I don't care about getting it on my armor.

"Wait!" She exclaims blushing. "Carry me on your back! This is embarrassing!"

Having to be carried at all is embarrassing, and I didn't want to get that slime in my hair.

"I can't carry you on my back because I'm carrying my bow too, plus this is faster." I explain away. This had nothing to do with my bow or the speed of the action. The toads wouldn't even be here for another couple minutes.

She pouts, but doesn't argue thankfully. "Kazuma get me my staff and hat."

So the male's name was Kazuma? A Japanese name, paired with the tracksuit and the goddess, implies heavily he's also from Japan. I'd need to ask them about it later.

With Megumin's gear gathered, we run back to town.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

We only had to run a few minutes before the toads were long behind us, so I slowed and let Kazuma take the lead as I had no idea where they were going in Axel. Thankfully, in the time it took us to make it back to city both he and Aqua had managed to compose themselves, and after a short break where we all regained our breaths, we continued inside. We got some odd stares due to fact the two girls in our group were covered in slime and that I was carrying one of them, but I had long since stopped caring about what others thought of me, so I paid it no mind.

"So uh, what's your name? In all the panic back there I forgot to ask." Kazuma hesitantly asked back at me as we walked.

"My name is Shirou." His eyes lit up, obviously recognizing the Japanese. Surprisingly, the blue haired goddess to my side didn't react at all. Did she not recognize me? "I'm no one special. I just happened to see that explosion in passing. After we reach wherever we are going I'll head off."

"Are you-" He suddenly cuts off, I'm guessing because of our company. "Never mind. I'm Satou Kazuma, this is Aqua and you're carrying Megumin. We're going to the baths, Aqua and Megumin really need to wash off and everyone usually takes baths before dinner. Why don't you join us? We owe you one for your help back there so I'll pay for yours."

I see, if we went to the baths the girls would be separated from us, and we could ask each other questions. Smarter than I would have expected from him. Before I could answer though, Aqua interjected.

"Oh! And you should come with us to the guild after words! We'll need you to confirm the deaths of those toads so we can complete our quest and get the reward. I'll even buy your meal!"

Quest? What did she mean by that?

"I have no problem with that, thank you for your generosity." I accept politely. I'd rather not stick around, but I had questions for Kazuma and Aqua I wanted answered and a free meal was nice so there was no real reason not to accept.

We stopped outside the bath house, and I looked down at the girl in my arms. "Alright Megumin, are you going to be able to walk on your own?" I asked. There was no response.

Did she fall asleep?!

Megumin had her head leaned up against my chest with her eyes closed, and she was breathing softly. When we had arrived I had though she was just embarrassed and thought nothing of it, but was she asleep the entire time? Megumin had said she was exhausted but I wasn't expecting her to be this tired.

In front of me Kazuma had a very unimpressed look on his face, and Aqua had started giggling to herself sliding up next to me. "She's only know you for an hour and she's already fallen asleep in your arms, you sure do work fast Pedo-Shirou." She stage whispers to me and poking me in the shoulder with each word, knowing full well everyone can hear it. She even drew out the annunciation of 'Pedo-Shirou' as if it was some clever nickname. What a truly cruel goddess.

My eye twitched violently. Everyone around us was suddenly giving me a very dirty look, and Kazuma snorted holding back laughter in front of me.

"If you wanted a bath that badly Aqua you should have told me sooner. Let me just wake Megumin up and I'd be happy to throw you into that river we crossed just a second ago." I say ominously while shooting her my nastiest glare. She ignores me though and, laughing quietly to herself, makes some distance between us.

I sigh, and lightly shake the girl in my arms. "Megumin, wake up. We're here."

Her eyes shoot open and realizing where she is, she tries to leap out of my arms. Unfortunately for her, she was still covered in slime, and the action didn't have the friction it needed, instead sending her careening out of my arms face first into the ground.

"Are… you going to be alright?" I mutter uncomfortably. I could feel the eyes of the passerby's digging into my back.

"Just leave me here to die." She moaned piteously up to me.

I nod solemnly, and walk into the bath house.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

Kazuma paid for the four of us, and before Megumin and Aqua followed us in we headed into the men's bath. I let Kazuma know I'm not looking for a full wash, and just intend to wash off my hand and armor. I would take a full bath when I returned to camp tonight. Thankfully the slime was easy to wash off, and the smell was mostly removed by the scent of the soap. It would do until I could do a more thorough wash later. After I was done I met back up with Kazuma and confirmed we were both from Japan.

"How long have you been here?" He asked. "You seem to have gotten some pretty good equipment. Was that your boon?" He gestures to my Shroud of Martin and my armor underneath, then to my bow.

Did I explain to him what they actually were? After my questions were answered it's likely I'd never see him again. Just half-truths would work best.

"Not exactly, I got these somewhere else. I've been here for a few weeks now and I've just been gathering information. Why is Aqua here? She was the goddess that sent me here, but she didn't even seem to recognize me."

"She was to be my blessing. I asked to take her with me, though she's been more of a curse than a blessing."

You could do that? When she had told me about the boon I would get, she had said any _thing_ and had assumed it didn't include people. It appears I was mistaken.

He continues. "She's completely useless! She can't fight at all, she spends all the money we earn on food and drinks, and she complains constantly about being here!"

That doesn't surprise me at all. Gods are incredibly selfish beings. But she doesn't want to be here? "If she doesn't want to be here, why doesn't she just kill herself, or if she's tied to you, both you and herself? If she's a goddess won't she just return to her realm?" I ask.

He freezes, before turning to me slowly.

"She… she wouldn't do that right? It's got to be against the rules or something!"

"The rules she made up? How can you be sure there are any rules at all?" I continue.

"There has to be! Otherwise this isn't fair at all!" He exclaims. Suddenly I'm glad we're the only ones in the men's bathing area. Despite Kazuma's earlier assertion that people took showers before dinner, there was no one else here. Perhaps it was simply too early? This world seems much further behind in technology than my own, and I had yet to see a clock, but judging by earlier it was only around four in the afternoon.

"Perhaps she just hasn't realized? Her intelligence is pretty low…" That's kind of harsh isn't it? She is a goddess.

Suddenly he focuses on me, looking completely serious.

"You must never tell her."

Tell a goddess to kill herself? An amusing idea, but I would never do it, there were many ways that could be misconstrued, and I had no real reason to help her escape when she is essentially sending civilian after civilian to kill a Devil King because she didn't want to do it.

"Of course not." I reply evenly.

"Good." He nods to himself.

"Moving on, what have you learned of the Devil King while you've been here. It may be worth sharing information." I change the subject.

"The Devil King?" He asks. "Nothing more than what I was told when I died…"

"Seriously? The goal you were sent here to complete and you haven't asked for any information?" I pushed.

"When you put it that way it sounds kind of dumb…" He trailed off.

I sigh. That's because it was.

"Here's what I've heard. Apparently the Devil King has been around for nearly forty years now."

"Forty years!? How has he not been defeated yet?"

"About thirty five years ago he was a real tyrant ordering the massacres of entire villages, but for some reason, something changed. Whatever reason his armies stopped killing innocents and some kind of conditional peace was agreed to. Strong fighters still occasionally hunt down both the Devil King and his generals but when they are defeated by monsters there is no retaliation on their end. Surely you've noticed it right? Despite there being a Devil King in this world, no one in this city seems concerned at all." I explained.

"W-What…" He seems dazed.

"Were you told when you died that this world was having a depopulation problem because no one wanted to be reborn due to the Devil King? Didn't you think that strange? When offered the choice why would anyone not want to go to heaven? After living here for a short time, I believe the real reason why goddess' are taking people from our world to fight is because no one here is really interested in defeating the Devil King anymore. " I finish.

Kazuma seems to be in shock. Was that too much all at once? Perhaps I should stick around a bit longer to make sure he'd be alright.

"Then the quest… it was all a lie?" He whispered.

"Perhaps not. While the people here may not have a grudge against the Devil King, it's clear the goddess' do. Considering their power to revive us here they may well deliver on their promise of a wish if you manage to defeat him, as long as it's not too absurd. But this is almost certainly a personal grudge against him rather than any great heroic quest. Keep in mind tough, even if their reason is selfish, you have been given a second chance. If you decide to fight anyway knowing this, make sure it's for something you believe in, alright? Regardless, I have no more questions for you right now. I'm done here, so I'll wait outside."

Finished with my business, I leave Kazuma to his thoughts.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

 **AN: So my grand return to fanfic writing is here! After the disaster that was my last fic finally left my mind I took the opportunity to learn from it. There were a lot of mistakes I made in the world building and storytelling of that one that I believe I've managed to avoid putting into this one. Hopefully with a better plan in place for this fic I'll have far less trouble actually writing it.**

 **So a couple things. My greatest flaw by far in the last fic was taking it far too seriously. I ended up trying to stuff tons of world building and f/sn lore I didn't understand down the readers throat because I thought it was important and it wasn't. In this fic, I'm going to take a more hands off and light hearted approach and not worry about every single detail of the f/sn lore and just enjoy the writing. That means more concise explanations and only when it makes sense! I won't explain why Shirou can trace a bow, or why he uses swords instead of arrows or what a prana is and so on. If he explains it to someone then that's fine but it needs to make sense in context.**

 **Another thing, this fic will jump back and forth between Kazuma and Shirou's perspectives. Everything in this chapter was presented from Shirou's point of view because it makes the most sense to introduce him to cast, where next chapter will begin with Kazuma's perspective on the fallout of Shirou's reasoning because that makes the most sense.**

 **Also not everything is as it appears. Shirou is assuming a lot about the Goddess' motives based on what he knew of gods in his world. Everything Shirou pointed out is his point of view, and may not be the truth. This should be obvious but it doesn't hurt to point out. I don't believe in bash fics and will not be bashing Aqua or the other goddess' out of some personal vendetta. She does end up traumatized quite a bit though in the actual anime doesn't she? And Shirou certainly doesn't like gods, especially after the life he's led. Also, while some of this was quite serious, this fic will mostly be comedy. Just assume anything too dark that gets in is trauma from playing Nier: Automata to 100%.**

 **The last thing is why this version of Shirou? Simply because I think it's the funniest in the long run. I wanted a super overpowered cynical Shirou that isn't afraid to be a jerk, because I think it fit best with the cast. Disagree? Write another fic! I'd love to read it.**

 **Updates Probably!**


	2. Chapter 2

(Kazuma's POV)

I was suddenly alone in the men's bath half naked and trying to save what I could of my world view.

Where does Shirou get off, walking into my life, taking my poor fragile understanding of the world, and breaking it into a million pieces!? Saying that my reason for being reborn was a lie, the person I had lived beside for days was lying to me and may leave or murder me at any moment! And then he just walks away without helping me at all! Could he be any more of an asshole!

My wonderful, simple new life! Gone just like that!

I suddenly realize I'm hyperventilating and I can't stop. The steam in the room make me feels like I'm suffocating, and I feel really light headed. I collapse as the world spins around me.

I was just a boy who liked playing video games and watching anime! How could the world be so cruel to me? Was I doomed from the beginning?

No. No I could fix this. I wasn't just some idiot who would give up at the first sign of turmoil. I forced myself up and onto a nearby stool.

What did I need to do?

Shirou was right, it had been idiotic to not look into my reason for being here. To fight simply because I was sold on the idea of being a hero in another world. I hadn't investigate my enemy at all, and that was why I was in this position. First I would need to confirm the information Shirou had given me. It made too much sense to not be true, but perhaps I could learn more. Why did the Devil King stop attacking innocent people? What grudge did the goddess' have against him? If not a grudge than what?

Second I needed to figure out how I felt about my goddess companion Aqua. I had complained to Shirou about her, hell I complain to everyone about her, including her, but I didn't really hate her. We had worked beside each other for a few days now, and I had seen her work just as hard as I did for our paychecks. I had seen her laugh and cry, I had seen her panicked and focused. I had seen her act like an adult and like a child, although it was usually the latter. I had seen her stat sheet and her below average intelligence. She was useless in combat but she had helped me in other ways. She wasn't plotting to kill me. That was absurd. I won't distance myself from her over this. I just won't. I couldn't imagine living here without her at this point.

And wasn't that a scary thought.

Third I needed to think about Megumin. I hadn't had the chance to talk to her since we had started running, but I found myself unsure on how I stand with her. Do I let her fully join the party? After seeing the aftermath of her explosion spell, I very much wanted to say no. I could hardly imagine carrying her home after every battle. I was lucky Shirou had offered because if I had been forced to I don't think I could have outrun those toads. And what kind or arch-wizard could only cast a single spell before collapsing? Beyond that she was incredibly childish, and I don't know if I could trust her to make any serious decisions. However after the world shattering conversation I'd had with Shirou, I'd suddenly been confronted with my future. Right now she was next to useless, but she was also really low level. That single explosion she cast was easily stronger than anything I've seen in my life. I don't think there were many things that could survive getting hit with that, and I could picture her one shotting a boss. And if she knew some other spells she would be useful at other things. What would she be like in ten levels? Twenty?

She may be a useless mage now but she had the potential for some serious burst damage and would have a strong loyalty to the party if we accept her. It was probably a good idea to let her join, but she would have to agree to increase her reserves as soon as possible.

Forth, Emiya Shirou. He may be a massive paranoid asshole, but he had without a doubt saved our lives. He had brought us together when I panicked and devised a plan to escape with everyone unharmed. He had carried Megumin all the way to the bath house without being asked, and besides the meal and bath he had been offered he asked no reward. Besides that, he wielded a massive bow he used to defeat five Giant Toads from over a kilometer away with a single shot each. Then he had crossed that distance in little under a minute. Then he carried Megumin during a full sprint alongside myself and Aqua and barely looked winded. It was almost absurd. What level was he? Did we really have to run away? He could probably punch the blunt resistant toads to death with physical stats like that.

Now that I thought of it, he had a bow but no quiver. Where did he keep his arrows? And that armor looked like some pretty serious stuff, but it wasn't his blessing? I thought he'd only been here a couple weeks, how did he get it? This is making less and less sense.

The guy was apparently smart enough to gather information and question the motives of the goddess after he was dead, but didn't bring an extra weapon with him into battle?

Ah! This was hurting my head. He had come alone though, so perhaps I could recruit him? Someone else from Japan with some actual intelligence in the party could only be a good thing right?

And lastly…

 _If you decide to fight anyway knowing this, make sure it's for something you believe in, alright?_

If I wasn't fighting to be a hero what was I fighting for?

I wasn't sure.

I was just a kid who dropped out of high school to play video games. Back in Japan I had no aspirations, no motivation to do anything other than indulge in my own hobbies. I had come to this world on the promise I could make use of my knowledge of video games to live a life as a hero. And that dream had been thrown in my face. I worked as a construction worker, and recently almost died to Giant Toads, some of the weakest enemies around. I really had nothing going for me in this business, my blessing being the cause of my troubles half the time.

What did I want to do, really? Pursue that dream anyway? The idea felt stupid and hollow to me. Give up? That seems really unappealing too. Gather wealth and live in luxury? If that was the case, why didn't I just go to heaven back then? There may be no internet or TV there, but there wasn't any here either. Was it just the lack of sex that held me back on it? I mean, I liked the female form as much as the next guy, but it's not like I had ever had sex before, so I didn't even really know what I was missing. Was I really so shallow that I stayed alive for the mere possibility of sex? Did I want to live my life now for just that possibility?

But what other goal was there for me?

Lost in my thoughts, I dressed and exited the bath.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

I left Kazuma behind as I left men's bath, thanking the receptionist as I left the building. I was unsurprised to see I had finished first, because even though I had spent some time talking with Kazuma, the girls had been soaked with the toad's saliva and would likely need to wash and dry their clothes before they would be done.

I was struck with the thought now was the time to leave. With Kazuma lost in thought and the girls busy I could just walk away. Most of the questions I had for both Kazuma and Aqua had been answered, and I cared not for any rewards they would offer. If I walked away now, I could be out of the city before they even knew I was gone. I'd likely never see them again anyway after this, so why not?

It was the reason I was being so secretive around them. The reason I had used normal arrows, the reason I had kept my projected bow around. If I hadn't bothered to hide it, it would reveal I knew magecraft, and while in this world that wasn't as big a deal, it would also encourage them to question me on it. Then I would be forced to either launch into an explanation about my abilities to people I would never see again, or refuse and be treated with suspicion. And while I didn't care for their suspicions, it might cause them to look for me in the future. It was a headache I could easily avoid, so why not just be discreet?

Since I was sent here, I had essentially been living as a hermit. I carried on as if nothing had changed between this life and my last. In my previous life I had grown use to working alone, and had continued doing so here. I had been living in solitude in my forest camp, only speaking with the occasional traveller briefly to have my questions answered. Hunting my own meals and washing my clothes before bed each night. It wasn't like I had any contacts in this new world, or any real way to tell where I was needed. So I wandered, practicing my magecraft and looking for those in trouble. It would be so easy to walk away and return to that.

Yet, I couldn't just walk away now. Kazuma's face bothered me. Even now I could picture his shock and unease as I revealed the information I had gathered over the past few weeks. If I left now, what would become of him? Would he push his companions away based on my suspicions? Would he do something dangerous to himself? I couldn't walk away because the person who needed my help was right here, and despite how uncomfortable I was with the idea of traveling to a guildhall, I would stay. How could I walk away from someone I had put in such a dangerous place for such a selfish reason as being uncomfortable? My ideals demand I stay until I'm sure he won't do something reckless.

The thing is, I had no idea how to help him besides keeping him alive. I couldn't really help him with his personal crisis, because I was still struggling with my own. What I had told Kazuma was true, there had basically been a truce with the Devil King for longer than I've been alive, so I had no real reason to get involved. I had been fed the same lie Kazuma had. Why was I here in this world? Do I really want to repeat my past life?

I had no answers, so I leaned up against the wall of the bath house and waited.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

I could hear Aqua's teasing tone well before I saw them, and sure enough, it was only a short time later they emerged from the bath house, their clothes looking mostly clean and dry. Judging by Megumin's bright red face and Aqua's shit eating grin she had used the time in the bath to mercilessly tease the poor girl.

Something of note though was Megumin now had a red eye patch on. Did she hurt it earlier?

"Hey Shirou!" Aqua exclaims, finding me after a quick glance around and approaches me. "Is that shut-in not done yet? He wasn't doing anything weird in there was he?" She asks still grinning.

Weird? What does she mean?

"I suppose he just needs a little more time. He'll be out shortly." Hopefully. I'd rather not have to go back in and pick up a shell shocked half-naked Kazuma.

She giggles to herself and looks away. Did I miss something?

"Uh, Shirou was it?" Megumin spoke up, getting my attention. At my nod, she continued. "Thank you for carrying me. I was comfortable ad warm and tired so I…" She trailed off looking uncomfortable.

When was the last time I had been thanked for something so earnestly? This alone was worth my decision to stay. I hadn't felt like this in quite some time. Even though she set herself up for such an easy teasing, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

"It was no problem, I didn't mind at all." I say closing my eyes and enjoying the moment, as a wry smile passes onto my face.

"Oh, so you didn't mind that she fell asleep in your arms." The goddess interjected in a singsong voice, utterly ruining the moment.

"You realize I am a Magus, right?" I dryly remark with a glare, remembering her response to the word in the afterlife.

The reaction was instantaneous, with Aqua jumping almost a foot backwards and shooting off apologies. I didn't feel sorry for her at all this time.

"With just a glare and some words…" The young girl next to me trails off in awe of my ability to send her companion into hysterics. I was thankful she was asleep for the exchange Aqua and I had before our baths. This one had gone much better for me.

My attention returned to Megumin. "What happened to your eye? Did you hurt it when you fell earlier?"

She turns back to me and takes on a serious expression, sending her arm out to the side sending her cape billowing behind her.

"This eye patch is for no mere injury! Its purpose is to protect those around me from the awesome power I hold in my left eye!" She declares, striking a pose.

Was it some kind of mystic eye? I had seen both her eyes earlier, when we met, and hadn't noticed anything strange about them besides their red color.

Aqua, having recovered from her earlier fit moves back over to us. "She wears it because she thinks it looks cool." She informs me in a very matter of fact tone of voice. Next to her, Megumin slouches.

… Eh?

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

After I left the bath house and rejoined my party members and Shirou, I was subjected to some teasing from Aqua for taking longer in the bath than a girl. We bantered a bit, before letting it be and moving towards the Adventurer's Guild.

On the way there, I move over next to Megumin to get her attention. It was time I had a talk with her.

"Hey Megumin," I start, rolling the words around in my mouth and wondering how best to talk about this. "Do you know any other magic than Explosion?"

"No." She says looking very serious. "I can't use any other magic."

I could tell Shirou and Aqua were suddenly paying very close attention.

"For real?" I mutter. "Can't you learn anything else?"

"I cannot." She declares solemnly.

I stop walking, as does she, and we stare at each other intensely. On both side of us, Shirou and Aqua stop as well.

After a moment Aqua speaks up. "But if you're a high enough level to use explosion magic shouldn't you be able to use something else? I mean, when I became an Arch-Priest, I was able to learn all kinds of skills."

To the side, I see Shirou raise an eyebrow.

"I'm an Arch-Wizard that only loves the Explosion spell. I can't stand using any other magic! The Explosion spell is the only one that matters to me!" She exclaims, working herself into a frenzy.

Was she insane? That was a really childish reason!

"That's really dumb!" I declare, point at her. "You can't just use one spell because it's the only one you like! The world doesn't work that way!"

To the side Shirou coughs, and looks away from us. Don't laugh at us, you asshole!

"I don't care!" She whines at me, eyes sparkling. "Even if I collapse after every spell, even if I can only cast it once a day, Explosion magic is the only one I love. I became the Arch-Wizard class for this spell alone!"

"Amazing!" Aqua says as she takes her side. "I can't help but be moved by your fierce resolve!"

Damn it, of course Aqua would find something as stupid as that commendable. And say something to help me out Shirou! Surely you think this is absurd too? Damn it all, maybe we would be better without her? But I had already decided I would try to make this work. Megumin, you childish brat, you had better be worth it in the future.

"Fine." I sigh. "But only on the condition that you put some skill points in to improving your reserves. If you collapse in battle it will put us into a terrible position, like earlier today." I allude to our brush with death, hoping she will see some reason.

"But those are points I could use to improve my Explosion magic…" She complains.

Too bad, you are already being unreasonable. I glare at her.

"Fine." She finally concedes. "But it will take a little while. Explosion magic is expensive on my reserves, and the reason I collapse is because I go so far negative. It'll be a few levels before I can cast my wonderful Explosion spell and maintain a positive balance."

I could accept that, I had already kind of expected it. Nodding I finish the conversation. "We'll talk later about when it's acceptable to cast Explosion, but I think Aqua and I are agreed that you are welcome to fully join our party."

Aqua nods, and Megumin breaks out into a brilliant smile.

This had better be worth it.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

It was only a short walk later to finally reach the Adventurer's Guild. After the day's events, it was a welcome sight. I was looking forward to finally getting paid, and getting something to eat.

Once inside, we walked over to the counter to turn in the quest greeting the blonde woman working on the other side. I had asked her name at some point, since I've seen her around here often, but I had forgotten it after a night of drinking and had been unwilling to ask again and look like an idiot. I think it started with an L? It doesn't really matter.

"To confirm the quest complete, I just need to see your guild cards. Please hand them over." She explained, repeating what she told me yesterday. The woman had been kind enough to accept a partial completion then, and had given me ten thousand eris for the two toads I had killed so that Aqua and I could have dinner yesterday.

Megumin nods and takes hers out, but Shirou tilts his head.

"What is a guild card?"

Was he serious!?

Megumin drops her card in shock and Aqua freezes to my side. After a second passes and his expression doesn't change, it becomes clear he's serious.

I feel my jaw drop.

"Ah, a guild card is what we use to keep track of quests. It contains all kinds of useful information." The staff member explains. "It automatically keeps track of kills made by the adventurer it's tied to. We mark what a person has on their card before they accept a request and use the card again when it's turned in."

"But can't people just write in whatever they want?"

"No, the card is a magical object that rejects all forms of writing. Otherwise it would be difficult to check completed kill quests."

"Hmm..." Shirou hums. "But I did kill five of those large toads. Can't you send someone to check? They should still be there." He reasons.

"I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. It could have been killed by another party, and it's against the guild rules to give out rewards without proof." She says apologetically.

Damn it Shirou! Now we still haven't completed this damn quest! How were we going to eat now!

Seeing our downcast faces, the blonde woman continues. "I can't confirm the quest as complete, but I can send people out to collect it! If they recover the bodies and no one else claims the kills, I can offer you all a free meal! And I'll still offer partial completion!" She offers, guessing what we were upset about.

At least there was that. What a kind woman.

Megumin picked up her card and handed it to the lady, who makes some notes on a sheet in front of her.

"That's one more down." She says trying to encourage us. "You still have one more day to kill two Giant Toads. I look forward to seeing the results of your efforts tomorrow!" She pushes a tray back with five thousand eris and Megumin's card.

"Not more toads…" Megumin whispers while staring at the tray, as Aqua whimpers next to her.

There was an awkward moment, before the staff lady broke the silence.

"Would you like to make a guild card?" She asks Shirou. "To avoid this in the future?"

"I suppose I should." Shirou mutters awkwardly.

"That'll be one thousand eris."

"Uhm…" Shirou moves his hand up and rubs the back of his head and looking down. "I don't have any money on me."

Damn it, was this how I looked when I first arrived? The guy could be an ass but I still sympathized with him.

Sighing I take a thousand out of our meager reward and hand it back the blonde. "I'll cover you this time. You did save us after all. Just pay us back later."

He nods, and the worker brings out a blank guild card. After another brief explanation of what he needed to do, he filled out his information and put his hand on the mechanism that bonded him to the card.

"Emiya Shirou, right? Wait, what the…" She trails off, as her eyes dart up to Aqua, then over to Shirou. "Your stats are really high too! Above average Strength, high Speed and Vitality, and an absurdly high magic stat!" She exclaims getting the attention of the few nearby bystanders. "Only average intelligence and your luck is abysmal, but with these stats you could be just about any class you want! To think we would get two people like this in such a short time!" She beams at Shirou and Aqua.

Is this a joke? I thought this guy was from Japan like me, why are his stats so good?

"Class?" Shirou responds looking lost.

"Didn't you say you were a Magus class earlier?" Megumin asks. For some reason Aqua flinched next to her.

"Is that a class?"

When did he say that? Was it when I was still in the bath? Why would he call himself a Magus class if he wasn't even an adventurer yet?

"Yes!" The staff lady answers. "You do qualify for that class. Magi are wizards who train in martial weapons, and seek to combine the two! Is that the class you would like?"

"That does sound surprisingly like me…" Shirou says looking surprised.

"Excellent! I'll just fill it in for you. If you ever want to change jobs, just let me know. I look forward to hearing of your exploits!"

So Shirou became a Magus, huh? I wasn't entirely sure he knew what that meant.

The Magus class was sort of like the inverse of the Spellsword class and was a recent addition in many RPG's and tabletop games. While a Spellsword was a fighter who seeks to use magic in combat, a Magus was a wizard who tries to use spells through his weapons. The problem was Magi traded off magic power for the ability to use weapons, so he would have an incredibly hard time learning any higher level spells until he had leveled up a lot. Beyond that, not being a master in swordsmanship meant many abilities a swordsman would have would be unavailable to him.

While Magus was an advanced class, in many gaming circles it was considered a weaker one that was difficult to use.

Shirou seems to use a bow, and likely didn't know any magic yet.

Had I just gained another useless party member?

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

 **Poor Kazuma has no idea. And that's a second chapter! In good time too! It's not as long as the last, but this seemed like a natural place to call it.**

 **So Shirou became a level 1 Magus! I was playing DnD Pathfinder not too long ago as one, and when I was thinking of what class would fit Shirou best I couldn't get the idea out of my head. It just made too much sense!**

 **Also, most of this chapter was explaining the thinking of Kazuma and Shirou a little more. I know I said last chapter I didn't want to over explain things, but their motivations and thought process seems really important to explain for this fic to work. I hope I was able to convey the problems they were struggling with clearly.**

 **Another thing worth noting was my avoidance of Japanese words like** **hikikomori and chuunibyou. While I had heard of chuunibyou before due to Monster Musume, I had never heard** **hikikomori before Konosuba. Blame me for being an American, but I want to avoid using Japanese words that the reader might not understand, when there are already English equivalents. NEET however, is universal, even if not used much in America and will be used later.**

 **Beyond that, you can already see some of the shifts in the plot. Since Kazuma's canon talk with Megumin was delayed, and he had a devastating talk with Shirou, along with some extra time to think it over, he came to a different conclusion than in the show, and got a different result. Party dynamics will shift because of this!**

 **Also, I was graciously gifted a link to the translated light novel online by the fanfiction user Bloody Hero. While they have my undying gratitude for that, and their help with understanding the world, I will be delaying the next chapter a bit as I consume the entire series for both personal and story reasons. You really are a bloody hero!**

 **Sorry puns are bad.**

 **See you next time.**


	3. Chapter 3

(Shirou's POV)

It was a little while later, and we were all sitting at a table further in the guild hall. Following the creation of my 'Guild card', there had unfortunately been a bit of a commotion with people welcoming me to the guild. I hated being the center of attention, and thankfully after seeing I was uncomfortable the crowd had dispersed and our small group had moved to find seats to wait. Every now and then I could feel a gaze on me, but I tried my best to ignore it. It had been a little embarrassing that Kazuma had to pay for this, but I had been unprepared. I had a little bit of this places money back in my camp, but I hadn't brought it along with me because it was no use to me during combat and I hadn't intended to enter the city.

I had stopped paying attention to Kazuma and his companions, and was instead absorbed in trying to understand the information listed on my card. I was familiar with the stat system they used, as it was not dissimilar from the information masters got on their servants during the Holy Grail War even if here they used numbers instead of letters.

Underneath a section called 'Known skills' I found listed a number of abilities I expected to be there. Things I had acquired or learned over my life were listed in simple terms without any description. My magecraft, the 'Unlimited Blade Works', 'Trace', and 'Reinforcement' were clearly listed amongst other minor abilities things like 'Minor Magic Resistance', 'Swordsmanship' and 'Archery'. Curiously though, non-combat related skills were listed like 'Cooking' and 'Blacksmithing'. Why would they be on here?

Even stranger were the parts listing 'Experience Points' and 'Skill Points'. I had zero 'Experience Points' but a couple hundred of the other? In my past life, I had relied on skill and versatility to defeat my enemies, so it was unsurprising I would be rated on that as well as my strength and magic, but surely I would have points in experience as well? I had fought in countless battles after all. And what did it mean by 'Level 1'?

Perhaps it would be best to ask? Kazuma and Megumin had been talking about this stuff earlier, so they should be able to explain it.

"Kazuma, what is a level?" I ask when there is a lull in Kazuma and Megumin's conversation about her use of explosion magecraft. Kazuma makes a choking sound and Megumin and Aqua send me a questioning glance so I elaborate. "You all were talking about it earlier, but I didn't understand it. What does it mean?"

"Eh? Seriously? Have you never played a game before?" He mutters to himself. "Well, levels are like a measurement of strength. We are all low level adventurers, so we're pretty weak. As we defeat monsters and complete quests we will gain experience points. When we get enough, our level will increase and we'll get skill points and get stronger. It's pretty basic." He explains.

How was that basic? It made sense in an abstract way that fighting would make you stronger, but how was it measured?

"Is it compared against something? Like are all level ones equal in strength?" I ask, looking for clarification. It still seems strange that I would be a low level.

"Kinda? I mean classes and stats really matter, but I don't really know if it's measured against anything. All people who become adventurers are just level one. That's just how this stuff works. Aqua, Megumin, do either of you know how levels work?"

Megumin shrugs and shakes her head, but Aqua nods.

"The level system is a thing us goddess came up with a long time ago. It was meant to make everyone's lives simpler by making skills easier to learn and people stronger in less time. For that reason, when a person signs up at a guild they are always level one! It's why even I, as the goddess Aqua, started at a low level!" She explains with a wide smile and flourishing her arms. Kazuma face palms and Megumin shoots her a pitying look.

"I see…" So that was why I was level one.

Putting my card away in my shroud, I turn my attention back to Kazuma.

"Have you thought about what I said earlier?" I ask him. As interesting as all this guild card stuff is, I wasn't overly concerned with it. I wanted to return to the reason I had stayed here.

"What part are you talking about?" He says, eyes darting to the girls in our company, then back to me. Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a reasonable excuse to have this conversation in private. The girls had already bathed and would be unlikely to go to the bathroom at the same time or anything equally as convenient to leave us alone. We'd just have to have this conversation here.

"Have you decided what you're fighting for?" I clarified.

Aqua tilts her head. "Didn't you tell him we want to kill the Devil King, Kazuma?"

To my side, Megumin sits up straight clenching her staff. A grin breaks out on her face. "The Devil King huh…? I always wondered how my explosion magic, the most powerful spell of all, would fare against the strongest enemy!"

At least she was enthusiastic. But this wasn't about them.

I could guess Megumin's reason for fighting after her tirade against learning other spells. She liked blowing things up. Likewise, if Aqua was willing to send people here from another world to fight, it was obvious she had a reason to fight.

What reason did Kazuma have though?

I wouldn't let him accept Aqua's goal as his own unless he truly believed in it, so I needed to shoot it down.

"Don't be absurd." I scoffed. "Just wanting to defeat the Devil King is a poor reason to fight. The childish dream of being a hero has been the death of countless foolish people throughout the ages." Like me, for example.

"If I hadn't been nearby today or if I hadn't seen that explosion." I continued. "You all would have died. Would you have been happy dying for that sorry excuse of a reason?"

It seems my words had killed the happy mood they had been in just seconds ago.

"But we have to defeat him! If we don't defeat him, I'll never get to be a goddess again! We're going to defeat the Devil King, right Kazuma?" The goddess says turning to him. Beside me I could feel Megumin shooting me a worried look.

Kazuma stared at the table and didn't respond.

"Kazuma…?" Aqua tried again, starting to look worried.

A few seconds pass where no one says anything.

"I don't know." Kazuma finally says. "I don't know what I want to fight for." He says, closing his eyes while looking pained. "You're like me, right Shirou? What is your reason for fighting?"

As if I knew myself. I had died chasing my own dream of being a hero who could save everyone, and the bitter feeling I got every time I thought of it bothered me to no end. I refused to regret the life I had led, and I had followed my cursed ideals all the way to the end. So why did the thought of doing the same thing here give me such an uncomfortable feeling?

"I fight to live up to my ideals." I declare. "I've been trying to following them ever since I was a child. They are foolish, childish even, but I can fight for no other reason."

I had learned long ago never to actually reveal my dream. No one would believe me anyway and it just caused problems.

Kazuma was silent for a moment as he considered that, before opening his eyes giving me an intense stare.

"I may not know what I want to do, but I know what I don't want to do." He says.

"I don't want to struggle to pay for meals. I don't want to work all day in construction for almost no pay. I don't want to live in the stables like a horse! And I most certainly don't want to give up!" He works himself into a frenzy.

"No, it's more than that! I want to go on adventures! I want to be able to live in luxury and enjoy my life! I want to fall in love with a beautiful woman and have lots of sex! I may not have a specific reason for fighting, but fighting will help me get all of those things. Is that a good enough reason for you bastard?"

It seems I was worried for nothing. It turns out he has a good head on his shoulders after all.

I smile wryly to myself. "The only one it has to be good enough for is you."

"Jeez, you had me worried there for a second, but you were just using this as a chance to be a massive nerd. Did you read that in a manga somewhere you NEET?" Aqua cracks ruining the mood yet again.

Kazuma slouches and his eye twitches. "I was being serious…" He mutters.

"I thought it was cool…" Megumin speaks up trying to encourage him, although it didn't seem effective.

"Of course you did."

After a few moments, Kazuma recovered and looked back at me with a serious expression.

"Shirou, I want you to join our party. I was meaning to ask earlier, but since you didn't have a guild card you aren't a part of any else's party right?"

All three of them were looking at me now.

"A party is just a group, right?" I muse, and he nods. It wasn't too hard to figure that out. However now that I knew he'd be alright, I wasn't too interested in sticking around. "Why would you want me to join?"

Kazuma is quiet for a second, as he seems to be wording his response.

"Parties usually consist of four to six members and team comp is really important for successful groups. Right now, we have Aqua as an Arch-Priest for healing and Megumin as an Arch-Wizard for magical burst damage. I'm the adventurer class, so in the future I'll be able to do a little of everything. Right now, though I'm a melee fighter." He says motioning to his sword. "You shot five Giant Toads with a bow from a good distance away, so you obviously know some archery, which is a good form of physical DPS. With any luck you'll manage to find a way through your Magus class to do some magical DPS as well. Your skills would work well in our party."

I'm completely lost. What is he talking about with DPS and team comp?

Before I could ask any questions, he continues. "You said it yourself earlier. If you weren't there today, we probably would have died. However, I don't think any of us are going to give up because of it." He motions to both Aqua and Megumin, who both nod.

"I want you to join so that we all have a better chance of survival."

Damn it. That was a really good reason.

"You may be able to join another party, but you are low level just like us and there would be few groups that are as good a fit for your abilities. Beyond that, tomorrow we still need to go finish our quest by killing two more Giant Toads. Would you please join us?" Kazuma finishes.

"Yeah!" Aqua interjects. "You may be a Magus, but you've already helped us before, and you still owe us for buying your guild card!"

Did I want to join them?

Most of that hadn't made much sense to me, but Kazuma did make a good point I hadn't considered. Megumin uses magecraft beyond her ability and collapses afterwards. Aqua, despite being a goddess, was useless in combat according to Kazuma and judging by how I found them it was likely true. I didn't know much about Kazuma himself, but since he was struggling with those toads earlier he was likely just a civilian that had been sent here by Aqua. Since they were still determined to go fight despite these flaws, if I left now would they die because of it?

Seeing I was still undecided, Kazuma continues pushing. "You aren't familiar with how this world works right? I can explain all the basics you might not understand, after all we would both benefit from it. Please, we could really use your help."

My instincts told me that if they wanted to do something as suicidal as fighting unprepared, then it was none of my business. That I couldn't save people who didn't try to save themselves. That I would be a fool to join them and encourage their reckless behavior. That I should discourage them from fighting again and move on.

But it was more complicated than that. That was the thinking that had ended up with me unable to save anyone last time. No one would listen to my advice, or heed my warnings, and no matter what I did they would go on and die anyway.

I didn't want to do that again.

It was undeniable I had failed in my dream in my last life. In the end, I had been unable to save anyone at all. If I agreed and joined Kazuma and his group, I might be able to die this time having saved at least these three.

After all, how could I turn my back on them after they had asked me for help?

The cynical smile on my face felt unwelcome as I gave my answer.

"It doesn't look like I have a choice then, huh? Very well, I accept. I may not always be available, because if something important comes up I'll have to deal with it, but I will help you."

"Thank you. We'll be in your care."

There was a moment of silence, but this one wasn't uncomfortable like the last.

I notice the blonde attendant from earlier was making her way over to us.

"Excuse me, a runner just told us that the five Giant Toads you talked about earlier were found. No one has come in claiming the kills, so you're welcome to pick a free meal like I offered earlier." She informs us, and hands out some menus.

So this place was like a restaurant too? I can't help but wonder what kind of food they have.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

In the end, we ended up getting some fried frogs. I had enjoyed them yesterday and no one had any complaints with it. Only a few minutes later our dishes were brought out and we dug in. It was nice to finally get some food after everything that had happened today.

Aqua and Megumin tore into the frog legs as if they were starving, covering themselves in crumbs. If I wasn't so hungry myself I might have scolded them for it, but I was far too busy chewing to do so. Shirou on the other hand was eating slowly and giving the food a really intense look. On anyone else's face I would have thought that meant they didn't like it, but since Shirou always seem to be serious I thought nothing of it.

Now that I thought of it, I had never seen him joking or doing anything other than standing around with a serious expression on. His tone earlier when he shot down Aqua's interjection was severe, and while he seems to be the only other normal person around compared to the likes of Aqua and Megumin, he was kind of an ass.

It had been really embarrassing asking him to join the party, and for a second I thought he would say no. I had tried to spin our party's abilities to make it sound as if we weren't entirely hopeless, but in truth I knew we were. Megumin could do burst damage once and then she was a burden on us. Aqua should be able to heal, but I had never seen her do it so I had no idea how effective it was. I should be able to learn new skills in the future, but I had no idea how to do it and I could barely fight now. We sounded good on paper, but the reality was different.

Perhaps it had been my offer of help that had convinced him, or perhaps he pitied us. As much as that thought stings, I was still glad he agreed. It would be nice to have a normal person in the party.

With that armor and his class, maybe I could talk him into the front lines instead of me. After seeing those toads, I would rather keep my distance. Maybe he could teach me the Archery skill and we could swap weapons? With all his muscles he probably would be a better tank than me, and even if that bow was bigger than me I'm sure with the Archery skill I could use it.

When we finished our meals, Shirou got our attention.

"Since we are going to be working together, I should probably share a little of my abilities."

Had he been picking skills earlier when I wasn't paying attention? I had been talking about Megumin about the application of her explosions, and had been paying much attention to him. But I thought he didn't know anything about video games? How would he know how to learn spells?

"It would be fair to say I have a similar problem to Megumin. I can only really do one type of magecraft."

Eh?

Megumin twitches next to him. "Don't call my love a problem…" She whines.

Shirou ignores her and continues. "The description given earlier of a Magus, while not the one I'm familiar with, actually describes me pretty well. Or rather, it's not that I seek to combine magecraft and weapons. Weapons are my magecraft."

Why was he using the word magecraft instead of magic? While they meant the same thing, basically no one used the term magecraft because it was pretty archaic. I had thought of him as an outdoorsy guy, but was he kind of a nerd like me?

Wait I think I just heard something really troubling.

"Are you trying to say you're some kind of martial artist genius or something? Isn't it kind of arrogant to call an ability like that magic?" I deadpan. This guy was from Japan like me after all. Nothing actually magical existed there.

"No, that's not what I mean." He said waving his hand in a dismissive manor. He picks up the massive bow he had brought with him and holds it out over the table. "I prefer to keep this kind of thing a secret, but I believe in this case a demonstration would be best."

The bow burst into fragments of light and vanished.

Oh.

Wait what.

"Wait. You just got your guild card. You've had that bow all day. You could do magic before you joining the guild?" Shirou was from Japan, just like me. In the bath, he said he had only been here a few weeks. How the hell did he learn magic?

"That's correct." He says. How could he…?

Wait, the blessing. This is what he asked for. The ability to create weapons. When I asked him earlier if the bow or the armor where his blessing, he had said 'Not exactly'. This was why, he had created them with his blessing. His blessing was conjuration magic.

"You learned magic without the guild card?" Megumin says in awe. "Even after studying Explosion magic for years I didn't understand how to use it until I became an Arch-Wizard and learned it with my skill points. That must have been an absurd amount of effort."

Shirou quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

No, this wasn't the result of effort. I couldn't say anything though, because Megumin didn't understand how we got here.

Still, conjuration magic was really useful. It was why he had no quiver, he had conjured the arrows. I had been planning to use the four thousand eris left over from the Giant Toad we had turned in to buy him a bundle of arrows for tomorrow, but he could just make more arrows whenever he wanted.

"What do you mean by being like Megumin? You may only know Conjuration magic now, but can't you learn some other spells?" I ask.

"Conjuration magic?" Shirou repeats to himself. "I suppose that's not entirely inaccurate, although the correct term is Projection Magecraft. But no, I can't learn any other kind of magecraft. It's a consequence of my incarnation as a sword. I simply cannot perform any other type of spell. Weapons that could even loosely be called a sword are the only things I can actually create, everything else is just a hollow imitation."

I could feel all of my respect for Shirou burn and die in an instant. He was just as delusional as Megumin. Don't just make shit up to sound cool you idiot! You are supposed to be an adult! You were supposed to be normal!

"Oh…?" Megumin smirked as she drew out the sound. "To think you would be as passionate as myself. Very well, as the only other magic user in our party I will take you on as my new rival. After all, even if you could learn magic without a guild card, my own explosion magic is far better than any conjuration. Yes, it's only natural that a powerful Arch-Wizard like me would have to prove my magic superior to a mere Magi's."

"Didn't I carry you back earlier?" Shirou remarks dryly. "Focus instead on growing strong enough to walk back by yourself."

She slouches in her seat. "A strong rival indeed. It appears I've already lost the first round…." She mutters to herself. She takes out a journal from somewhere and starts writing in it.

Damn it Megumin, don't encourage him. Damn it Shirou, don't encourage her either. I could already feel a headache coming on.

"Well I think your conviction is astounding! I'm really inspired! Perhaps I should take the same pride in my own abilities with the both of you around." Aqua weighed in, striking a pose.

Don't you fucking dare, you stupid goddess. I'm still perfectly willing to leave you behind if you do something so frustrating. You should know better than anyone how he actually got this power. Did you seriously forget him so easily?

"Pride? You misunderstand. I am not proud of my abilities. This is simply the way things are."

Sure it is.

Suddenly Megumin sat up and turned to Shirou. "Now that I think of it, if that bow earlier was conjured, why did you carry me back in your arms instead of on your back? That was really embarrassing!"

Shirou looked at her for a moment, and then pointedly turns back towards me.

"Moving on, I'm proficient at both ranged and melee combat. We need to go and kill more of those toads tomorrow right? That will be a better time to demonstrate my magecraft, and I want to know more about what you all can do then as well."

"Don't just ignore me…" Megumin glared at Shirou. He completely ignored her anyway.

That's right, even if Shirou wanted to act as if he were in some anime, he had defeated those Giant Toads earlier today and saved us. If he was willing to help us, and he wasn't useless in combat, I could put up some weirdness. Even if it really pissed me off he'd lied so blatantly to us.

"What time were you planning to meet tomorrow?"

"Uh, just meet here tomorrow morning I guess. We should probably eat before heading out." The four thousand eris we got would probably be enough to get a couple meals to share for lunch. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing.

He nods getting up. "I'm going to head back then before it starts getting dark. I will see you tomorrow morning."

We wave, as he leaves the building.

"Hey Kazuma… do we really need to go kill more toads? Can't we just take another quest? I really don't want to be near them again." Whined the woman who was supposed to be a goddess. Megumin nods along with her.

"I will not fail the very first quest we take! After all of this we are going to at least finish it!" The two of them whimpered.

Damn it all, these people were going to drive me insane.

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

It was about thirty minutes later and we were still all sitting around the table. Neither Aqua nor I were particularly interested in returning to the stables early, and Megumin seemed in no rush to leave either. At some point it had gotten darker outside, and members of the staff had come to each of the tables and lit candles to keep the building illuminated.

Our party's conversation was all over the place, but it was to be expected since we were trying to get to know each other. It was almost difficult to believe that just over a week ago I would be playing video games alone in my room at this time. I had worried a little when I first got here with Aqua that I wouldn't fit in and would find any conversation with the locals uncomfortable. Yet, as I sat discussing what our favorite kind of food was, I was struck with the realization that despite their flaws, Aqua and Megumin were really easy to talk to. It was a comfortable kind of inclusion that I had lacked back in Japan.

This wasn't bad at all.

However, the moment wasn't to last as we were interrupted.

"Excuse me? I happened to see your recruitment poster and wanted to see if you were still hiring."

A woman spoke behind me and I turned to look at her. The first thing I noticed about her was that she was beautiful. It was a striking beauty that hypnotized me. She was a little taller than me, with long blonde hair with bright armor. She was obviously some kind of knight. Before I could respond, Aqua beat me to it.

"Yes we're still hiring. Who are you?"

I had forgotten about the poster we had put up yesterday, and had forgotten to take it down when we left this afternoon with Megumin.

Did we actually want anyone else in the party? Already with four of us, our profits were going to be divided pretty thinly. Could we actually support a fifth member?

Before I had decided, the woman spoke again.

"I'm glad, I've been anxiously waiting for a group like you." She paused, and took a breath before stepping a little closer. "My name is Darkness, and I am of the Crusader class. Would you… let me join your party?"

Was my mind playing tricks on me or did that sound wrong somehow?

"Oh! A Crusader class? Absolutely, we could use someone like you in our party!" Aqua decided.

Wait.

"Wait!" I force out, getting the attention of all the girls.

"Huh? What's the matter Kazuma? There should be no problems with a Crusader joining us right?" Says Megumin.

"Don't we already have four members? Can we really support a fifth? And besides we don't know anything about her yet! We can't just let her in like that!" They were being ridiculous! We need to think this through!

"Oh!" The woman, Darkness she called herself exclaimed softly to herself shifting from one foot to the other. Was she shy or something? She was suddenly blushing. "If you are worried about payment you could deprive me of my share and spend it on yourselves?"

Isn't that kind of a weird way to word it? And why did she seem happy about that?

This woman was setting off all kinds of alarms in my mind.

"No, we couldn't do that to a member of our group…! Besides we are all pretty low level , so maybe you should join a better group? We probably can't help you much in combat." I would rather avoid adding any more nutcases to our party.

"I don't mind at all. In fact, it might be better this way! As a knight, it's my duty to use my body as a shield so that others are safe!"

Stop wording things weirdly! And why do you look so happy!

"Don't mind him, he's just a shut in. Come and take a seat!" Aqua waves toward the empty seat Shirou had left earlier. Megumin scoots over to give her a little more room.

I was being overruled!? I thought I was the leader of this party!

Darkness took the offered seat, we introduced ourselves, and Megumin and Aqua resumed the conversation from before as if nothing had changed. And just when I thought I understood social conversations!

I took a moment to consider her in terms of team composition. It was clear, with that sword and her armor, that she was a melee fighter. Crusader was one of the vanguard classes that were basically a mix between a normal knight and a priest, and they had impressive HP and defense. I was worried earlier about who would tank in our party, and this woman could probably serve that role well. Beyond that, she was beautiful, and while I was a little uncomfortable because of that, it was no reason to turn her down for. In theory she would make a great addition, as she rounds out the flaws the rest of us had.

In theory. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with her.

Still I should try to learn about her.

"Hey, Darkness was it? We're actually in the middle of a quest right now. We have a quest to kill five Giant Toads that expires tomorrow evening. We have already received credit for three, and we were going to head out tomorrow to finish it. How are you in combat?"

"I am confident in both my stamina and endurance, but honestly…" She trails off. "I'm not great with my hands and have a hard time hitting enemies."

Somehow I was unsurprised.

"Don't worry though! I may not hit the enemy, but I will happily charge in and get it's attention! Tell me more about these toads!"

"Uh, they are bigger than an ox and are pretty tanky. They resist blunt damage, but are weak to slashing, piercing, and magical attacks. If you get too close they try to eat you though, so ranged combat is best. Megumin and Aqua here have both been eaten before because they were too close."

The two in question shivered. Darkness on the other hand looked ecstatic.

"I… I want to experience that too…!"

…Eh?

"No, what I meant to say is that I will protect all of you by staying as close to these toads as possible!"

I see, so that's how she is.

Wasn't I supposed to have a high luck stat? Why is everyone I meet insane?

 **-God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

 **Another chapter down! With this, we are out of the 'Starting Arc'. Shirou sticks around, and things are altered by it!**

 **A few things I want to touch on. Someone asked for POV at the start of each new scene, and that was a good idea. I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think of it myself. I'll do that from now on and add it to the previous chapters.**

 **As for why the magic stat and intelligence are separate, it's that way in the light novel. They don't really talk about what the stats are in the anime and I won't really go too far into them here since this isn't a 'The Gamer' style story. Besides, it makes sense they are separate because Aqua has no problem using spells constantly despite her below average intelligence.**

 **People have been discussing pairings, and while I haven't entirely made up my mind, I can say for certain Shirou won't get with anyone in Kazuma's party. It'll be touched on a bit in the next chapter but he is a bit older than all of them. People outside the party, like Wiz, Luna, and Chris may be fair game though.**

 **Another thing, someone was surprised Megumin compromised at all to join the party. Considering that all she agreed to was to increase her reserves and how desperate she seemed to be, it doesn't seem strange at all for her to agree. She even says in the show that as she levels up it would happen naturally anyway. And it's not like she's removing that flaw now either. She said it would take a few levels, and if she only gets the reserves a couple levels earlier than normal, well that's hardly her fault right? After all, she put in a couple points to raise her reserves so she can't be blamed…**

 **Lastly, I hope Darkness came out alright. Perhaps I'm just not as perverted as I thought, but I found writing her a little strange and I went through a couple drafts of how she actually speaks. I'll do more research before the next chapter to try and pin her character down better, as she is a large part of the story.**

 **I'll see you all next time!**


	4. Chapter 4

(Shirou's POV)

It was a little after dawn when I arrived at the adventurer's guild from yesterday. My journey here had been quiet and peaceful, as the civilians of city of Axel began to wake up around me. On my waist I had tied what money I had lying around in my camp. It was somewhat uncomfortable carrying a bag of coins. They made noise with each of my steps and kept bumping into my leg. I found myself longing for the paper money and cards I used to have back on Earth.

As I made my way inside I was surprised at how empty it was. Unlike yesterday, when at least half the tables had been filled, there were only a couple of people milling about. After a quick glance around, I noted I had arrived before any of my companions and moved to take a seat. After a few minutes of waiting, the blonde attendant from yesterday made her way over to me.

"You're Shirou, the new Magus from yesterday right? You sure are up early today." She greeted me. "If you have some eris with you today, would you like some breakfast?"

"Not yet, I'm waiting on my companions. Sorry I didn't have any money on me yesterday, I wasn't expecting to come into town. I didn't have a chance to ask, but what's your name? You were very kind to us and I wanted to thank you."

"Oh it was nothing! We see starting adventurers all the time, and I understand how hard it is starting out. I am Luna, it's a pleasure to meet you." She says with a small bow. "So you did end up joining Kazuma and Aqua? Although, if you're waiting on them it will be a while. They usually don't show up here until close to noon."

"Seriously…?" Had I misunderstood yesterday? Kazuma had said to meet up here in the morning so we could eat before heading out. I had assumed he meant breakfast, but did he really mean lunch?

I sigh to myself, almost certainly. Kazuma was a civilian before coming to this world, so he likely wasn't used to waking up at sunrise like me. I really should have remembered to ask for a specific time. It seems I'm still unused to working with others.

I think he said something about living in the stables yesterday, as weird as that was, but I had no idea which ones. A city this size had several on each exit of the town so my odds of finding them were low, and it would likely be better to just wait here until they showed up. Besides, I had no idea where Aqua and Megumin were staying and we would have to wait for them anyway.

"Well it appears I have some time to kill then." I think, as I look around and consider what to do. "Hey Luna, do you need any help around the guild? I'd rather stay busy, and I can cook and clean. Think of it as repayment for the generosity you showed us yesterday."

"Oh, you don't need to do that!" Luna says surprised.

"Please, I insist. I like helping out where I can."

She mulls it over for a second. "Can I see your guild card? I need to check if you have the needed skills."

I was a little hesitant to hand out the card with so much information on me, but Luna had seen it yesterday already and I had no reason to deny her.

I take out the card and pass it to her.

"Oh wow. Cooking, Cleaning, and even the Repair skill? You're actually a pretty handy guy Shirou."

"I lived mostly on my own when I was younger, so I'm used to doing those things." Was that really so strange? Everyone should be able to do that stuff.

"Well with these skills I can certainly hire you. We can't have adventurers that are not part of the staff working, but I can offer you a part time job to get around that."

So these guild cards sort of served like a resume as well? Did I want a part time job? It'll give me something to do, but I don't really need the money and if I was going to help Kazuma I might not be around too much. I did owe Luna though, and the idea of working part time gave me some nostalgia for my high school days.

"I'm part of a 'party' now and might not be available for shifts sometimes. Is that ok?"

"Don't worry about shifts, just work whenever you want and we'll pay you for the time you spend. We all understand that sometimes adventurers are away for a while."

Isn't that pretty unorganized? People might try to take advantage of it. Still, it was convenient for me.

"Alright, I accept. Where do you need me?"

"Welcome to the staff, Shirou! Follow me, there are some boxes that need to be moved."

It really was just like old times. There always seems to be boxes to move.

I got up and followed her.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

It was a few hours later when I noticed Megumin walk in. I waved to get her attention, and after a moment she noticed and came over to me.

"Good morning Shirou. What are you up too?" She yawns in greeting.

"I'm cleaning up after a customer that spilled their orange juice. If I don't take care of it quickly, it will dry and make the table sticky." I explain, as I return to cleaning the table.

"But why are you doing that? Just let one of the staff take care of it."

"Oh, I joined the staff. I misunderstood what time we were meeting and got here early, so I needed to kill some time and wanted to stay busy."

"Eh? You got a job just because you were a little early? And don't you need a bunch of household skills to get a job at a place like this? What are you spending your skill points on…" She deadpans.

What did my skill stat have to do with anything? Would it be applied to things outside of combat like cleaning?

I hum softly to myself as I finish up. "There's nothing wrong with helping people. I've been told that it won't interfere with any missions our group goes on, so it won't hurt to have this option available for when I have the time. It's a little early for lunch, but Kazuma and Aqua should be here soon. Would you like something to eat? I'm sure I could get control of the kitchen for a little while and make you something."

"You can cook!?" Megumin exclaims, before a devious smile crosses her face. "Shirou! It's time we have the first real match of our rivalry! Since you embarrassed me yesterday, it's only fair I get to pick the terms. You will cook something for me, and if I decide its good I'll pay for it. However if you lose, you must pay for the meal!"

Again with the rivalry thing? Even I could see this was just an excuse to avoid paying for a meal.

Still, I had no reason to turn down this challenge. I already intended to pay for their meals. It's why I brought money with me in the first place.

"Take a seat. I'll be done in a few minutes." I wave her off and make my way to the kitchen.

The fried frog yesterday had been average at best, although the actual frog portion of it had been surprisingly decent. I just could never understand the American's fascination with deep frying everything and was a little disappointed to see the same thing here. There were so many other ways to prepare food, especially ways that are far healthier.

I'm curious to see what ingredients were stocked here and what facilities that had available. Taking an apron from the wall and wrapping it around myself, I began taking stock. There were a surprising number of meats available to pick from, along with several fruits and vegetables along with eggs and flour.

I could work with this.

Now that I think of it, Luna had sent people to collect the toads we had killed yesterday right? Perhaps that was why there were so many options to pick from. The guild likely stocked materials from the 'quests' they send people like Kazuma on.

I admit I can't help but feel a little excited. It has been several years since I cooked for anyone but myself, and doing so now reminded me even more of my past. Days spent cooking for Sakura and Taiga, then for Saber and Rin, then for Rin alone. Days of a happier time, many years ago.

Lost in my past, I start cooking a meal for Megumin.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

I yawned as Aqua and I made our way to the adventurer's guild. We had been up far too long talking last night and we had ended up sleeping in. It was almost noon, and with any luck everyone would already be there so we could eat and head out. I wasn't looking forward to going back out there, but I'm determined to at least finish the first damned quest.

Making our way inside, I spot Megumin by her hat and we make our way over to her.

"Good morning" Aqua and I greeted, taking seats around her. "Are Darkness and Shirou not here yet?"

There was no response.

Megumin was staring at the table with a hollow look in her only visible eye, and it looked as if she hadn't even noticed our presence. There seemed to be a dark air around her.

"Megumin?" I try and get her attention. "Are you alright?"

"I lost utterly…" She muttered. "In the end I could say nothing bad about it. It was so good I even asked for a second plate despite having no money. Hey Kazuma, could I have two thousand eris…?"

"Don't ask for money as a greeting." I deadpan. "What's going on?"

Suddenly, a male voice interrupted.

"She challenged me to cook something for her." Shirou explained, as he came into view holding a plate of good looking food. He set it down in front of Megumin, and then took a step back. "Make sure to eat it all. It's important for growing girls to get enough to eat."

The air around Megumin seemed to get even darker even as she started eating. "Growing girls…?"

However, I was unconcerned with Megumin's growing depression.

"Shirou, what the hell are you wearing?" He was wearing the same red and black outfit from yesterday, however on top of it he was wearing what looked like a cooking apron. Those don't go together at all!

"Hmm, this?" He looks down then back to me. "I was cooking so I put on an apron. It's important to stay clean around food."

At least change clothes or something. You look like an idiot.

I face palm, and Aqua takes over. "But why are you cooking? Only the staff is allowed in the kitchens."

"I misunderstood when we were supposed to meet. I thought we were meeting for breakfast, so I arrived pretty early. Luckily, Luna knew you usually showed up closer to lunch, so with nothing better to do, I decided to help out around here."

Was this guy some kind of workaholic too? First he was an asshole, then a complete weeb, now he's the type of guy to get a job because he had to wait a couple hours?

Aqua elbowed me shot me a grin. "Maybe you should be taking notes, Kazuma. If you followed Shirou's example, you wouldn't be a useless NEET!"

"Don't call me a useless NEET you worthless goddess." I glare at her.

I notice that Shirou is no longer looking at us. His eyes had widened and he looked startled. I think this is the first time I've ever seen him lose his composure.

"There you are. I've been looking for you." Came Darkness' voice as she and another woman move up next to Shirou. "What's wrong?" She asked as she noticed Shirou was staring at her.

That seemed to shake him out of it. He shook his head and replied, "Sorry, I just thought you looked familiar."

Darkness coughed and turned away from him. "It must just be your imagination. I've never seen you before."

What was with this tense atmosphere? Did they know each other somehow?

"Shirou this is Darkness, she's a Crusader that showed up after you left yesterday and joined us. Darkness this is Shirou, the last member of our party and a Magus." I introduce them.

"We'll be working together then." Shirou gives a small bow.

"It will be my pleasure to be your shield." Darkness returns it.

I'm sure it will.

"Well you're certainly a colorful bunch." The girl with Darkness said, looking between Shirou's ridiculous outfit, my own green tracksuit, Aqua's vibrant blue dress, and Megumin's witch outfit. "My name is Chris, I'm a friend of Darkness. I heard she joined a new party and wanted to see who it was."

We all took a minute to introduce ourselves, then Darkness and Chris took seats at our table. Shirou remained standing however, and sent myself and Aqua a disparaging look.

"In the future we will meet earlier, understood? Starting early is for the best when it comes to missions like this. We have wasted quite a bit of time by waiting this long." Shirou scolded us.

"Yeah, yeah we slept in today. We're sorry." We weren't that late, there's no reason to scold us because you were here early and got bored.

Shirou sighed, obviously unimpressed with my apology. "You really should take this more seriously. This isn't a game. Regardless, we should eat before setting off. Fighting on an empty stomach is never a good idea. You're low on funds right? I have some money from before we met." He motions to a bag on his waist. "So this time I will pay for all of your meals." Megumin perks up. "Yes, including you. I was already planning to pay for your meal before you made a challenge."

Megumin broke out into a brilliant smile. "I forgive you for everything you've put me through! Can I have another plate…?" In front of her was the plate from before but it was completely picked clean. When had that happened? And wasn't this already her second plate? Where did this little girl put all that food?!

Still, that was nice of him to pay for us. There was no way I would have enough money after Megumin's double meal to feed everyone.

"Of course." Shirou says taking her plate and looking at the rest of us.

Oh right, he was in the staff now. He was probably waiting on us to order.

"I'll take what she had." I motion to Megumin. If she could eat three serving of it, it had to be pretty good right?

Shirou collected our orders, and then left saying he would need to let Luna know he was ending his shift. I watched him make his way over to her, and the name clicked in my mind. The blonde woman's name was Luna. I needed to make sure I don't forget this time.

Although weren't they getting along too well? Luna was definitely smiling more than she ever had when talking to us.

"He's an interesting guy." Chris says. "I've never seen a Magus wait tables before, much less one willing to walk around in a cooking apron."

"He seems pretty serious despite that. He has a certain air about him…" Darkness trails off.

What was with all these sudden flags for Shirou?! Luna, Chris, Darkness, and Megumin all within twenty four hours?! Was he actually some king of erogame protagonist?

"Don't be fooled. He can be pretty nerdy if you ask him about his magic and he's a major ass at times." I explain to try and salvage my dignity.

"So my feeling was right!" Darkness says with a weird expression on her face.

Being around this girl was going to give me a headache.

"Oh Kazuma, you sounded a little jealous there." Aqua grins slyly. "What's the matter, worried that Shirou will replace you as the man on the team? You aren't much of a man in the first place."

This bitch…!

Megumin and Chris burst into laughter.

"Worry not Kazuma! Even if you are the lesser man, I will be just as happy to shield you!" Darkness flushes.

Why am I here with these people again?

"You guys are hilarious!" Chris chokes out between laughs. "You know what? I'm not doing anything today and I want to make sure Darkness is alright, so I'll join you guys for your quest. You just need to kill a couple Large Toads, right? And for the laughs and the meal you won't even need to pay me!"

A temporary party member? I'm not sure how it translated into this world, but in games temporary party members are usually really high level people that you can sometimes recruit later after you get stronger. Even though she's laughing at me, I can't help but wonder if my luck is finally improving.

"We'll be glad to have you." I welcomed her.

"What class are you?" Aqua asks.

"I'm a thief, I'm good at stealth attacks and stealing loot, though I doubt there will be much of that out there today."

"There he is!" Megumin suddenly exclaims, and when I turn my head I could see Shirou, who had removed the apron from before, had reappeared with a bunch of plates. Had she been watching the entrance to the kitchens this entire time?

"I've already paid for everything, so as soon as we finish eating we're heading out." Shirou told us while passing out plates and then taking the last remaining seat. "Enjoy the meal."

Megumin began eating immediately, while the rest of us took a moment to inspect our meals.

"This looks amazing! Did you really cook all of this yourself?" Aqua says in awe.

When Shirou nods, Chris then takes a bite out her meal and a grin breaks out across her face. "This is great! With food like this maybe I should hang out with you guys more often!"

Did Shirou just recruit her in a single bite?! Is it really that good? I mean it looks good, but it's just food right?

Well I can only find out by eating it.

I take a bite of my own meal to try it out.

!

This is incredible!

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

We were almost back in the hills where the Large Toads could be found after that wonderful meal.

"I don't think I've ever been this full in my life." Megumin says with a very content expression. "I bet I could make a truly beautiful explosion with this much energy!"

"I'm looking forward to it." I said cheerily. The good mood was infectious. With the exception of Shirou who wore his usual neutral expression, all of us were smiling and in high spirits.

"I'm not one to tell people what they can wear, but are you sure you want to go into battle like that? Those clothes don't offer much protection and judging by your dagger you are a close range fighter." Shirou asked Chris a little further ahead of us.

"I'm fine." She waves him off. "Armor would just slow me down and make it harder to dodge. I believe in dodging attacks instead of tanking them."

"Not a bad reason, but be careful. I don't want to see you injured due to overconfidence."

It seems not even Shirou's pessimism could ruin our mood.

"Hey Kazuma," Began Megumin. "Aren't there a lot more of them than yesterday?"

But that could.

We were close enough to see the hills now and indeed there were a lot more of them. As opposed to yesterday, where there were maybe one every few hills, it now looked as if every single hill had at least one Large Toad on it. Some of the larger hills had several milling around at the tops.

"Even more than after the explosion?" I wonder out loud. "Why are there so many? They can't still be agitated from yesterday."

This didn't make any sense. There were far too many of them for us to fight directly.

"We must press on! We can't let this quest go unfinished…!" Darkness was suddenly panting.

"We need an entry point. If we can get to the top of one of those hills, we'll have a place to start." Shirou says holding an arm out in front of him. "Trace on."

Trace on? What was that supposed to mean?

The massive black bow from yesterday suddenly appeared in his hand. I had almost forgotten he could do that.

"What!?" Chris exclaims. "Where did that bow come from?"

That's right she wouldn't know. We had let Darkness know about Shirou's abilities last night, but Chris had no way of knowing.

"Shirou knows conjuration magic." I explain to her then turn to Shirou. "We only need to kill two Large Toads, so can you snipe two of them? That way we could avoid fighting them."

"No."

…Eh?

"There are a couple reasons why." Shirou continued. "First, if I was going to just kill two of them to finish the quest, then why did the rest of you come out here? I could have finished this last night on the way home. Second, yesterday you said that killing foes would make you stronger through the guild card. It's a vague concept, but not entirely wrong. The experience of fighting them would be good for all of you."

Damn it he was right on both accounts. If we had him shoot two and we all left, none of us but him would get anything out of it and we would have pretty much wasted our time. I had killed two of the Large Toads at the beginning of this quest and gone up two levels. If I wanted to get stronger I would have to fight things eventually.

"These are weak enemies, so they are ideal for practicing on." Don't rub it in you asshole just because you use a weapon that counters them. "I asked Luna earlier, and she said every additional one we turn in is an extra five thousand eris. I'm also curious to see what you can do. Don't worry, if things get dangerous I will save you and if you need my help to execute a plan I will do my part. Just don't expect me to do everything."

So he wanted us to come up with a plan to test us? I suppose that's fair, but I can't help but feel like this was partly just laziness. Still, this wasn't terrible. We had six people now. I could probably come up with a plan for this.

"I'll help you get started. Do you see that hill there?" He points with his bow at one of the hills closest to us. It was still a little far but I could make it out. "There is only one toad on it. I will shoot it, and we'll start from there. The height is ideal for me to provide support where necessary, and it's a good defensive location."

"That's some pretty good planning." Megumin said surprised. "Have you been in a lot of battles before?"

"You could say that." Shirou says taking a couple steps forward and raising his bow.

"Are you going to shoot it from here? Do you even think you can hit it?" Aqua asks. I can't help but wonder that myself. We were nearly a kilometer away from the hill he had marked.

"Yeah, most bows only have a range of at most two hundred meters…" Chris says confused.

Shirou ignored them and held up his other hand. Suddenly what looked like a long sword appeared in it.

Wait.

"Shirou you made a sword." I deadpan.

"I told you yesterday. I am a sword incarnation. This bow was created specifically to fire weapons."

What the fuck was wrong with this guy.

He held the sword up to his bow and drew it back. The bow creaked a little as it was drawn. Wait, now that I had a good look at it, was the entire bow made of metal? How does that even work?

He fired his shot and I could physically feel it. The air itself seemed to shift and I could barely make out the sword as it crossed the distance between us and the Large Toad in about five seconds. Even from here I could see it get knocked off its feet and collapse.

Did he just fucking break the sound barrier?

What.

"There, let's move up." Shirou says dispelling the bow and starting to walk towards the hill.

No seriously. WHAT.

None of the rest of us moved.

Chris blinked. "Well I stand corrected. That just happened."

Was that some kind of enchanted bow? Somehow it seemed more like a high powered sniper rifle.

I remembered a saying, that if something looked stupid but worked, it wasn't stupid.

I felt like this was too absurd even for that phrase.

Shirou just fired a sword from a bow that broke the sound barrier and hit its target a kilometer away.

"The strength required to even draw and shoot that bow must be enormous. Is he really human?" Darkness wonders.

Was he really level one?

Was that the power of Archery? No matter what, that will be the next skill I learn. I had to learn how to do that.

"Ok, I admit that was cool. Perhaps my rival's magic is worthy of respect after all." Declares Megumin.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

I made it to the hill first and began analyzing our opponent.

There were seventy toads within my sight. Accounting for the ones that may still be underground or the ones hidden between hills, there may be as many as a hundred.

There were several ways I could deal with this. These toads are large, slow, and unarmored making them little more than targets for ranged weapons and easy to cut apart for anything sharper than a club.

However, I wouldn't do anything. These enemies were ideal for letting Kazuma's group practice. If I ever wanted them to be independent then they would need to learn to deal with stuff like this themselves.

"Shirou what was that?" Kazuma pants, having run up the hill with everyone else to catch up to me.

"What do you mean?" I look around once more, but I don't think I missed anything major.

"That!" He points to the toad I shot earlier.

Did he mean how I hit it? It wasn't really a difficult shot. "That wasn't anything impressive. I can hit things much further away."

"An absurd claim." Megumin mutters. "Even though you lack the red eyes, are you sure you aren't a part of the Crimson Demon clan?"

What is a Crimson Demon? I think I heard that from her before but couldn't remember where.

"Now isn't the time for questions. It would take far too long to explain, so focus on the mission instead. Ask questions later if you must."

"You will teach me the archery skill after this, right Shirou?" Kazuma begs.

He wanted to learn archery? I had nothing against teaching him. I would need to see if Axel had an archery range, or failing that make one myself near my camp. I nod to him.

"Awesome!" Kazuma exclaims, before looking out at the toads moving about. "So we need a plan for this huh?"

I waited patiently while he thought.

"Alright, I think I have something. The most effective way we have of dealing with the Large Toads is with Megumin's explosion spell and Shirou's archery. Chris you're helping us right?"

"Just for today. What's up?"

"If you'll help out, you, along with Aqua, Darkness, and myself, will run as bait to gather a bunch of toads together at the base of the hill here. If we get them grouped up, Megumin's spell will be an effective AOE and we can clean up any that survive as a group."

"But Kazuma, I don't want to be bait! I'm a goddess! I don't want to be anywhere near those toads again!" Aqua complains.

"You can't do anything else." Kazuma says in a completely flat tone. "They resist blunt damage. If you don't do this you are completely useless."

"I, for one, like this plan." At least Darkness looked enthusiastic.

"Shirou." Kazuma says, turning to me. "I want you to stay here to defend Megumin and support us if we get surrounded or if one of them gets too close."

"So that's your plan? I'll do my part." I agree.

"Megumin, prepare explosion and wait until I call for you. Try to hit as many as possible."

"My explosion will destroy them all!" She clutches her staff tightly with a small grin.

"After our initial attack, we'll retreat. We only need to kill one more, so any extra is just a bonus. Is everyone ready?" Kazuma finishes.

We all nod in agreement.

"Then let's try this." I retrace my bow while Kazuma, Aqua, Chris, and Darkness all start moving off towards different hills to get the attention of the toads. All of them but Darkness went off without a hitch.

"What is she doing?" I wonder aloud. Darkness was standing in front of a toad, and it was clear she had its attention, but she wasn't running away. She hadn't frozen up had she? These toads were hardly intimidating.

I line up a shot and prepare to help her if the toad attacks.

There is a tense moment, where Darkness and the toad stared at each other and I wait to see what will happen.

Then the toad turns and jumps away.

"Oh yeah." Megumin says beside me. "The toads don't like metal. With all her armor it must not want to attack her."

"Wait!" Darkness shouts loud enough that I can hear her from here and starts running after it. "Don't run away from me!"

Well there's one part of the plan already failed.

Let's see how the others are doing.

"Shirou!" Screamed Aqua as she ran from two toads. "Save me! This is far too scary!"

They weren't even that close to you, you'll be fine.

Chris and Kazuma were doing alright at least. They had gathered a group of five behind them and were moving to meet up with Aqua.

"Megumin, are you ready!" Kazuma shouts.

"Yes! Watch closely, my rival, as I'm about to show you the strongest magic!" Megumin raises her staff and begins chanting as the sky darkened. "I who stand on the edge of darkness itself, draw upon the power of oblivion! I am a conduit of the world's endless power, an avatar of destruction! I call forth the power to demolish civilization and destroy my enemies!"

Her staff started glowing,and she pointed it towards her target.

"EXPLOSION!"

A massive beam of light appeared from the sky striking the center of the group of seven toads. The resulting explosion sent one of them flying in the shockwave while the other six were caught in the blast and died immediately. The sky cleared, and Megumin started falling forward. I caught and steadied her by letting her lean against me.

"Impressive. Was that an aria?" I ask, taking in the effects.

"Aria?" She mutters sounding exhausted. It seems like that spell takes a lot out of her.

"An aria is a type of self-hypnosis, an important part of the performing complicated magecraft."

"An aria… yes. That was my aria." She says with a small smile.

I turn my attention back to the others. I can see Chris and Aqua making their way back to us, Darkness was still running after the toad from before, and Kazuma had moved to finish off the knocked down toad. The shockwave had thrown it on its side and it was struggling to get back up. With its head so low Kazuma made quick work of it, and then also came over to us.

"Alright… we did it." He gets out between pants. "Darkness! Let's leave before the other toads get here!"

"I don't think that will be a problem." I say looking at them. Despite the explosion, none of them were looking our way. In fact, all of them were looking in the same direction.

In the distance I could see what looked like a green cloud heading in our general direction.

"What is that…?" Kazuma wonders, seeing the same thing.

"Is it that time of year already?" Chris ponders aloud. "I think that might be the cabbages."

Cabbages? Like the vegetable?

"But cabbages can't fly, much less move on their own." Reasons Kazuma. "Unless you mean something else?"

"Oh you wouldn't know would you Kazuma?" Aqua says as if remembering something. "In this world, even the fruits and vegetables are alive and fight not to be eaten. When harvest season comes around they fly off across the continent in giant groups until they die off somewhere."

Seriously? That made no sense at all.

"It's a shame we missed it. Usually catching cabbages is a really easy way to get money this time of year but we don't have any bags to carry them back to Axel in. The toads are likely all waiting here for them to pass through. If we go back the way we came we can avoid them." Explains Chris.

So the cabbages were a food source for the toads? That was likely the reason there were so many here today.

Megumin sighs. "Then let's just head back, I'm already spent. Kazuma, you carry me! I can't be carried by a rival, so you are the best alternative."

Kazuma still seems to be reeling from all the information.

"Hey Shirou?" I raise an eyebrow to show I'm listening. "I want to go back to Japan. I can't deal with this anymore."

Perhaps this latest event was just too much for him.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

 **Alright, chapter four! I'm sorry this took so long, but I'm in college and right in the middle of mid-terms. I know, excuses and all that, but it's true! Mostly. I may have procrastinated a bit too. I was asked about making an update schedule, but I can't really promise one right now. I'm pretty new to writing so I'm not particularly fast, so the time between chapters varies depending on how much free time I have and how clear the picture is of what I'm trying to write. I'm aiming for at least once a week, but that may vary.**

 **Hopefully, I've managed to convey how Shirou will interact with the cast on quests. He's ludicrously overpowered yes, but as he says himself, if he does everything then what is the point? His goal going into this is to get the party into decent shape so that he can do other things.**

 **Also, I know 'Shirou the god of cooking' is fanon, but it's funny and since this is a comedy it makes perfect sense.**

 **On guild cards, I think they are incredibly wide spread in the Konosuba world. I'm willing to be just about every single person has one. It's basically an ID card that also serves as a resume that can't be tampered with that anyone can get for the equivalent of ten dollars. And it teaches you skills with barely any effort. In the Megumin side story everyone in her village has one, even the kids in school. It's almost like trying to find someone without a cell phone today. Sure in rural areas or third world countries you will probably find people without one, but basically everybody in a western country has them.**

 **On another topic, for this story, I want don't want to cover canon again but with Shirou tagging along. His presence changes the events that happen in canon significantly, as is more apparent in this chapter since Kazuma doesn't learn thief skills from Chris but instead gets her as a temporary party member. Since the frog quest was delayed a day the cabbages appear while they are out on the quest and so on. As things go further, they will separate more and more from canon. With any luck doing things this way will keep the world fresh.**

 **Addressing one of the reviews that asked why Shirou doesn't think of Rin, Saber, and other people from his past more often, it's because for him it's been several years since he's even seen them. The premise for Shirou's backstory in this fic comes from a quote from Nasu himself, where he says that a Rin/Shirou relationship would not last due to their vastly different interests and ambitions, and the fact that a relationship only holds both of them back from their dreams, yet it is this relationship that keeps Shirou from Archer's path. This Shirou is written with that back story in mind, an Unlimited Blade Works true ending where he follows Archer's path anyway. Don't get me wrong, I like Rin, but for this story to exist it has to be this way. Sometimes when things line up with his past, he'll think about it, but he won't see someone cast a spell and think 'Rin used to use magic…' He's a broken hero not a broken heart.**

 ****Edit** Regarding the quote from Nasu, when asked for it I couldn't find a direct quote and I'm led to believe that it's either a mistranslation or a fan theory instead. It doesn't change that I'm working with that back story, but it doesn't come from Nasu.**

 **This world will do wonders for his mental state for a number of reasons. Out of curiosity, what do people think the first skill Shirou will learn is? I already have the entire scene planned, but I can't help but wonder what people think.**

 **Lastly considering Kazuma himself. Give him time. He's had no reason after Aqua and Megumin to take Shirou seriously. While everything Shirou says is completely serious, after Megumin poisoned his view of magic he just doesn't believe him. In time, he'll learn more and come to respect him, you can see a little of that this chapter, but right now he really has no idea how lucky he is.**

 **Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

(Shirou's POV)

It was just after dawn once again as I entered the adventurer's guild. I was used to waking up this early, and with nothing better to do I had decided to work until everyone else was ready to go.

When we had returned yesterday, we found the guild working to count and store the cabbages that had flown through. After turning in the quest our group had split up for the day. I had left to help out the other staff members while the rest of our group celebrated their first successful mission.

Making my way inside I take in how empty the place looks. I could only see one obviously tired clerk in the booths and I could make out Luna cleaning a table near the back. I nod in greeting to the clerk who returns it while I walk over to her.

"Good morning." I get her attention and lean up against a nearby table. "It's awfully quiet today."

Luna jumps and turns around to face me. "Shirou! Sorry, I didn't hear you come in. Good morning!"

"I didn't mean to startle you."

"No, no." She waves her free hand in dismissal. "It's my fault. I'm still tired after harvest season. After all the excitement yesterday, I imagine everyone is. That's why almost no one is here."

She yawns and shakes her head to try and stay awake.

"Thanks for all the help with transporting the cabbages. Without your help all of us would have had to spend a couple more hours working."

I shake my head. "All I did was move some baskets back here. Most of the difficult work was done before I arrived."

Luna sighs. "You make it sound so easy. Not everyone can pick up and load those things like you can."

When I had met up with the other staff members yesterday, all I had really needed to do is take baskets full of cabbage, load them on carts, and then unload them when we brought them back to the adventurer's guild. It wasn't difficult work at all.

The most interesting part had been the cabbage itself. On request, I had been allowed to bring one back to my camp and investigate it. It turns out that it really was just a head of cabbage. When it was 'killed' its eyes faded and a perfectly normal vegetable was left behind. I could only wonder what had led to these enchanted plants in the first place. I had seen some far stranger things in my life, but this was certainly up there.

"Anyway, I'm here to work. Where do you need me?" I change the subject.

"Hold on!" She exclaims and steps closer to me. "You only get to work if you agree to accept payment this time. It's very kind of you to help without taking a reward, but I told you before that the guild can't have non-staff members working here, and for you to count for that you need to be paid. No more of this 'I'm repaying a favor' stuff, got it?" She pokes my breastplate.

I had refused payment for my shifts yesterday because I was only doing them to stay busy and out of a desire to help where I could. We had this argument then, and when Luna found out I had intended to pay for my groups meals she had waived the payment and refused to accept my eris. Still, my payment would have been more than the meals cost, so I had counted it as enough to repay the kindness she had showed me when I first arrived.

I hold up my hands in defeat. "To think I would be forced to accept payment even after refusing it. Truly I ended up in a strange place."

"You're the strange one." She mumbles to herself while looking around. "Anyway, I don't think there is anything you need to do right now. Most of the cleaning is already done and I doubt any customers will show up anytime soon. Oh, I know! You cooked lunch for your party yesterday right? They seemed to really enjoy it."

I nod.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" I shake my head and she continues. "I haven't either. Could you go to the kitchens and cook something with cabbage in it for us? We need to start using it since we have so much and if you can make something good, you can start working in the kitchen full time instead of cleaning. We always need more help in there. Besides, I want to know more about you and this will give us a chance to talk." She winks.

A meal with cabbage as the focus? I'm sure I could come up with something.

"Would you like some tea to go with it?" I smirk confidently as I right myself and prepare to head off.

"That would be lovely." She beams.

It seems I would be taking over the kitchen earlier than expected.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Shirou's POV)

A few hours later I finally regrouped with the rest of my group.

Chris had stopped by for breakfast a couple hours ago and then hurriedly left saying she already had a job today. After that, everyone else gradually showed up and I ended my shift after cooking us all an early lunch.

Kazuma sat opposite me in between Darkness and Aqua, while Megumin sat next to me. We all were taking the time to enjoy our lunch.

"This is basically just a salad. How in the world does it taste so good?" Kazuma mutters as he finishes his meal.

"A lot of practice." I answer having just finished my own cabbage stir-fry.

"Even the chefs back home couldn't make anything this amazing. Your cooking skill is really impressive." Darkness compliments.

Megumin suddenly turned and grabbed my arm. "You'll cook for us from now on right? I don't want to go back to the food from before you."

I guess that was kind of touching? What was with the strange expression on her face?

"Just remember that you have to actually pay this time. I won't cover all of your meals again." I remind them. "Moving on, what mission are we taking today?"

"Uhh…" Kazuma groans. "I don't know. I haven't even thought about it."

"It's still the Large Toad's mating season, right? I won't wear armor this time, so I'll definitely get their attention…" Darkness trails off as a blush covers her face.

"No!" Aqua and Megumin shout simultaneously. Their coordinated refusal was somewhat impressive.

Darkness wasn't listening though. "Although being ignored by the toad was good too."

I can only imagine she was embarrassed after yesterday's disaster. Even after chasing it, the toad had wanted nothing to do with her.

When I had first seen Darkness, I had mistaken her for Saber. Between the blond hair, the cold face, and the knightly armor I had been baffled for a few seconds before all the other details struck me. Darkness was a good bit taller than Saber was, with much longer hair and a different style and color of armor. Still, Darkness' demeanor and role as a knight remind me of her.

"Well that's out. Let's think about this logically then." Kazuma begins. "We're all still low level so we can't do anything too difficult. Unfortunately it's the high level quests that pay the most. So with that in mind, our goal should be on leveling so that we can get better quests in the future."

"That makes sense. Then let's take a quest with a bunch of weak enemies for me to blow up!" Megumin rubs her head against her staff.

"No." Kazuma shakes his head. "That would be dumb. If we were leveling you we'd want a quest with a single enemy that would die in one explosion. Besides, out of all of us you are the highest leveled."

Megumin pouts. "Then who are you trying to level?"

Kazuma rubs his chin for a second. "Well the weakest of us is Aqua. I just don't know how the hell we're supposed to get her experience points."

"Wait what! How am I the weakest?" Whines Aqua. "As goddess, I should be stronger than a NEET like you by default!"

"Well let's see. How should I put this…" Came his deadpan reply. "In the three battles we've been in you've been either bait or completely useless. You do no damage because you refuse to use a weapon other than your fists and you constantly end up in trouble. Beyond that, you are still level one aren't you? How are you not the weakest?"

Well, that wasn't an incorrect analysis.

"That's not fair!" Aqua's eyes begin to water. "Those monsters resisted my God's Blow! Besides, I'm an Arch-Priest and a goddess! I know all kinds of healing spells, so I'm way more useful than a basic Adventurer class like you."

"Hey Megumin?" Darkness whispers, but we can all still easily hear her. "Why does Aqua keep calling herself a goddess?"

"Kazuma told me she does that sometimes. Just ignore her and she'll stop."

Darkness nods and turns to Kazuma. "Kazuma, if your frustration is getting to you please take it out on me instead of this poor deluded maiden! She doesn't deserve it!"

Kazuma twitched violently and Aqua bursts into tears.

I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose. This is going nowhere fast.

"Enough." I interject. "Stay focused. We were looking for a mission that Aqua could do?"

"Well, it's difficult because Arch-Priests don't have many offensive spells." Darkness explains. "As a result, in parties like this the healer is usually the lowest leveled. If we are trying to level Aqua, our best bet would be quests with undead since her healing spells would hurt them."

Undead?

Kazuma nods his head. "So things do work that way here? Then that would be our best option."

"What do you mean by undead?" I ask. There are several kinds of undead I know of, and none of them were good.

"Are you serious? Everyone should know about the undead. You know like skeletons and zombies?" Kazuma says shocked.

Skeletons and zombies? I had heard about zombies from my time watching TV back in high school, as they were popular in horror movies back then, but I was much more familiar with them in terms of the Dead Apostles. During my brief time as an Enforcer I had sometimes come across cities infested with moving corpses, and the resulting searches for their creators had led to some of the darkest points in my life. The loss of life was devastating and there was something incredibly painful about cutting down enemies that were just innocent civilians not too long ago.

Skeletons were much less common, but I had been unlucky enough to encounter them too. During the Holy Grail War, Caster was fond of reanimating bones and using them for ambushes and assaults since they were dangerous and difficult for any non-Servant to deal with.

This group wasn't ready to face either of them, much less something that can create them.

"I don't think we should take any missions with undead as a part of it. None of you are ready for it."

"Eh…?" Everyone else at the table suddenly looked confused.

Kazuma rubs the side of his head. "Shirou, the undead are like the easiest thing to kill in RPGs. I know you're still new to all this, but they really aren't a big deal."

Aqua, having recovered from earlier rejoins the conversation. "Especially with me around! No undead can stand up to my abilities!"

"No, you don't understand. These enemies are far more dangerous than some overgrown amphibians. And where did you get this absurd idea about healing them?"

"Look it's difficult to explain. It'll be a lot easier just to show you, although this is all for nothing if there isn't a quest available in the first place." Kazuma stood and Darkness moved to let him out. "Since we know what we're looking for, I'll go check the quest board." He left to begin his search.

There was an uncomfortable moment where no one spoke.

"So uh…?" Megumin breaks the silence. "Do you have a history with undead or something? You're acting almost like you are scared of them."

Scared wasn't a good word for it, more frustrated with their complete lack of self-preservation.

I sigh. Unfortunately I wasn't surprised by this information. Wasn't that why I stuck around in the first place? I had feared they would get themselves killed if I left and it seems I was correct in that assumption.

"I've fought what you call undead several times before and many of those times I've barely escaped with my life. These enemies… they just aren't something any of you are prepared for." I try to explain.

"You've fought them before? If you didn't have a priest I can see how that would be a problem." Darkness mused.

"Well don't worry, I can't stand the undead either! As abominations against the gods, I'll definitely purify all of them!" Aqua exclaims raising a fist.

Could I really trust in that? Aqua was without a doubt a goddess, and should know what we were up against better than anyone else in our group. Still, I had been around her for a couple days now and what I had seen has not inspired confidence.

With any luck there would be no such quest available and we could pretend this conversation had never come up.

"Hey, I found one. Just a short ways from town there is a graveyard where zombies have been spotted at night. The quest is to destroy them and whatever is making them." Kazuma returns holding a sheet of paper.

Root damn it! And it was close to Axel as well? Even if I didn't want to drag any of this group into danger, this quest had suddenly become a priority. I absolutely would not allow the dead to spread into the city. I would far prefer if Kazuma and the others stayed behind so I could take care of this myself. Fighting while defending them would put me at a disadvantage, regardless of how much energy I had to throw around now.

Kazuma, having read something in my expression, broke me out of my thoughts. "If you don't want to go Shirou, you don't need too. Aqua will be doing most of the work and if it looks dangerous we can just run."

So they would go without me? Damn these reckless children. It seems I wasn't left with much choice.

"I'm going, however you must promise me one thing." I glare at all of them. "If things get dangerous do not run away immediately. Instead, stay close to me until I can create an opening so that we can retreat together. I can only protect you if you don't go off on your own."

"Wait was all this…?" Megumin laughs quietly to herself. "As expected of my rival, not letting single opportunity go to waste."

I continue glaring. I would not compromise on this.

"I still think you're over estimating them, but if it makes you feel better we'll follow that plan. If things do go poorly the most important thing is that all of us escape." Kazuma agrees. "Still, the quest doesn't start until tonight. What do we do until then?"

All I can do now is hope things work out well.

"Oh I know!" Aqua exclaims. "Let's get some more food and drinks. I'm hungry!"

"We ate like twenty minutes ago…" Kazuma deadpans. "This is why we never have any money. Wait I have an idea." He reached into one of the pockets of his tracksuit and pulled out his guild card. "I'm level three now, so I have a couple skill points. How do I use them?"

That caught my attention. Use them? What did he mean?

Darkness leaned over and pointed at something on the card. "See the learnable skills section here? Oh right, you're the adventurer class so it's blank. For you, you will need someone to show you the skill you are trying to learn and it will appear here. Then you'll buy it with skill points."

Buy skills?

"So I'll learn them just like that?" Kazuma turns to me. "You said you'd teach me archery right Shirou? We have some time, so why don't we just do that now?"

"Wait." I say taking out my own card. "What are you talking about? Are you saying these cards can teach you things?"

"You didn't know that? I know you learned magic without it, but how do you think the rest of us learned? Magic is really complicated." Megumin says surprised. "Have you really not spent any points? Besides your magic, I've seen you use Archery skills and you got a job here in the guild so you must have at least some of the household skills. You could do all that before you got a guild card?"

I nod.

Up until this point I had been treating the guild card as if it was something like a Servant card. Something that kept track of stats and abilities and served as a sort of reference sheet for what a person could do. But if what they were saying is true…

"How does it work? When I got the card all the things I could do were listed on here already, but I didn't put any information into it other than some simple information like my name and age."

"I can answer that one." Aqua gets our attention. "The guild card is linked not only with you soul, but your mind as well. Us goddess' knew when we created it that people who already had skills would be annoyed if they had to relearn things they already knew. So we made it so that when the card is created everything you know how to do is listed under your skills. After that it was easy to make it go both ways. Whenever you learn new skills the information on how to use them is inserted directly into your head!"

What…! This card is absurdly dangerous!

Darkness nods. "I learned all kinds of defensive skills that way, but I don't know any offensive ones. Not that I'm in any rush to learn them… Anyway, Aqua you really should stop calling yourself a goddess. Just about everyone knows this information, and you really shouldn't try to use it to impersonate a goddess."

"But I really am a goddess! I am! I am!" Aqua whines as her eyes water.

"What do you mean you are in no rush to learn offensive skills…?" Kazuma rubs his forehead.

I wasn't listening anymore though.

I was staring at the card I held in my hand with new found wariness. If this thing was really connected to both my mind and soul what would happen if it was damaged or destroyed? What if someone else got a hold of it?

I considered destroying it with Rule Breaker for a second before dismissing the idea. While doing so should just annul the bond between the card and myself, there was a possibility that something could go wrong and I could hurt myself by being reckless. Beyond that these cards seem to be common for many purposes in this world. The guild kept track of quests through them, and it seemed they were used as resumes for employment as well.

Still, I had been far too carefree with this thing before. I need to be far more careful with my card in the future.

With that decided I turned to the other piece of information I had gained. This card could teach me skills.

Did I want to risk it? Doing things that mess with your mind is foolish, but these cards were wide spread in this world right? Surely it wasn't too dangerous.

Perhaps it would be best to look at what skills I could learn. It's possible there was nothing I cared about available to me and that would solve the issue.

I tapped the learnable skills section and a list appeared. I start reading through them looking for anything that caught my eye. There were a few types of magic listed, which was a little interesting since I had thought it impossible for me to learn other types, and quite a few skills that I had no idea what they meant. Still, nothing really-

!

Could I really learn that? I blink a couple times but the words don't disappear.

'Heal'

I could actually learn a healing spell?

I knew such magecraft existed, Rin had known several types of healing magecraft, not to mention all the times I had seen similar ones employed against me. Even the pitiful goddess across from me was said to be able to perform them. But despite my best efforts I had never been able to learn any of the spells I had seen.

The reason why was due to my element and origin of Sword. My magecraft was very narrow in scope and I couldn't really do anything else. I had swords that could passively heal their user during battle, swords that could absorb life force and redistribute it, and swords that could even grant regeneration under the right circumstances. However every single one of them was never meant to be used to heal another person other than their original wielder. Most of these effects barely worked for me, and only because I traced them.

A swords purpose is to harm after all. I had accepted that a long time ago. The only way I could save others was through fighting.

Yet I was now being offered a way to learn something I thought impossible.

How many times had I watched someone die because I could do nothing for their wounds?

My hand moved and selected it.

Something clicked in my mind.

"Shirou is something wrong? You've been quiet for a while now." Came Kazuma's voice.

I smiled sincerely, for the first time in a long time.

"No, nothing is wrong."

I could feel it.

Here in this world, I was closer to my dream than ever before.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

"Is this the place?" I ask.

"It would seem so. Wait just a second, I'm going to speak with the owner." Shirou says as he enters the building.

Shirou had agreed to teach me the archery skill, but had insisted we find an archery range. After asking around we had found out that one existed on the edge of town. With nothing better to do Darkness and Megumin had followed us, while Aqua stayed behind to eat another meal.

Now we were waiting to see if Shirou could convince the owner to let us use this place for practice.

Seriously what the hell was up with that guy? Every time I think I understand him he does something new to confuse me.

I was beginning to piece together his backstory. Since he was from Japan like me he was likely in the Archery Club during his time at school. That's how he knew archery. For his cooking ability it's possible he became a chef or something after high school since he was a few years older than me. His conjuration magic had been his blessing after he died and was sent here. That would account for all the skills he knew before he met us.

Still there were so many things about him that made no sense. The image of him firing that massive bow, along with how he so easily carried Megumin back when we first met him made no sense for someone who became a chef after high school. He was just in too good shape. He also seemed to have an intense dislike of the undead. Maybe he was really religious or something before he died? That didn't sound right though. And what was with that smile back at the guild hall?

"Kazuma this is boring." Megumin complained.

"How is that my problem? Go find something else to do then."

"Such harsh words… Hey Kazuma, I find this dull too. Reprimand me as well!" Pants Darkness.

What had I done to deserve dealing with these people?

Mercifully the door opened and Shirou returned.

"We'll have the archery range to ourselves for the next hour. Come inside."

We entered the range and Shirou left again to get a practice bow for me. Along the back wall was a single bench that Megumin and Darkness quickly claimed leaving me to stand and wait. I took the time to take in my surroundings.

I had dropped out of high school, but I still remembered the look of the dojo back at my old school. Comparing the two, I would say this place was slightly larger with a more western style design. Overall it was very mundane feeling with little more than the targets and a bunch of empty space.

Despite that, I was getting excited. There was a certain air here, a quiet that was uncommon in other places. This was the place I would learn archery. This is where I would learn my first skill as an adventurer.

"Are you ready to begin?"

Shirou had returned with a wooden bow and some arrows.

I was so ready for this.

"Let's do it!" I hold out my hand to receive the bow.

He shakes his head and doesn't give me the bow.

…Eh?

"There are some things you need to know before I'll let you try shooting. Usually there are a number of things we would need to go through before we reach this step, but due to our limited time I will be skipping over some things. First, I will explain exactly what I will be teaching you. You may already know this, but there are several different styles of archery."

Wait seriously? Isn't archery basically just drawing and shooting an arrow? There can't be that many ways of doing it.

"I am experienced in two different styles, and combine elements of both to use a style specifically to play to my strengths. Naturally, the same style would not play to yours. Instead, I will teach you a little of both and we will continue from there based on what works well for you."

What does that even…? This was not how I thought this would be going. "Slow down, I'm getting lost. What do you mean by different styles? How would yours not work for me? Is it because nonsense with swords you do?"

Shirou shakes his head and moves over to stand facing the targets. "It may be easier to demonstrate. Watch closely, I will show you Japanese style archery first."

He held up the bow and nocked an arrow on the right side of the bow while moving into what was obviously a form of some kind. After a second he released the arrow and it sailed down the range striking the center of the target.

It was nowhere near as far as I had seen him shoot yesterday, but I was still impressed. Was I really going to be able to do that?

"Japanese archery is above all else a mental discipline. The process and the mindset behind it are critical to its success, and the ability to visualize what you want to do will be how you improve in this style. Of the two styles I know, it's also much more flexible. As you improve you will learn to make shots while running or on horseback."

That sounded really cool…!

Shirou lifted his bow once more and nocked another arrow. This time the arrow was on the left side of the bow, resting a little above his left hand, and the bow was at a slightly different angle.

This was how he held it yesterday!

Once more, the arrow struck the center of the target, and I could tell it had gone a little further in than the other arrow.

"That was Western style. It's a little faster and hits harder, but it lacks the versatility of Japanese style. Still, I favor it for its added range and better ability to pierce armor. Do you have any questions?"

Who knew archery was so complicated? I had never heard of any of this stuff before in video games. Thankfully I think I understood what he was saying. One was more powerful but less mobile, and vice versa for the other.

But damn, he knew both of those styles? That killed my theory from earlier on his past. If he was in archery club in high school he probably would have only learned Japanese style. Why was this guy's backstory so confusing? Where the hell did he learn all this?

"I have a question."

I flinch and turn around to find the voice. Megumin had her hand raised in the air as if we were in a classroom and it was clear she was the one who had spoken.

I had forgotten they were even here. I guess I had been too caught up in moment.

At Shirou's nod Megumin continues. "So the difference is basically just what side of the bow the arrow is on? Couldn't you just say that?"

Is that really all she got out of all this?

Shirou rubs the side of his head with his free hand. "No, that's not it at all. Where you paying attention? There are many differences between the two."

"Aren't you taking this a little too far?" Megumin deadpans. "It's not cool if no one understands what you are talking about."

"Eh?" Shirou looks baffled.

Did she not believe him or something? That was something I hadn't considered, was Shirou…?

No, I had definitely seen difference in the two stances. This wasn't like with his magic a couple days ago, all the explanation he gave made sense this time. There was no way he was making this up. I would trust that Shirou was right on this. Besides, he was an archer and Megumin wasn't. It's not surprising this is something she doesn't understand.

"I have a question too." Darkness speaks up. "What is a 'Japanese' and what does archery have to do with the west direction?"

Shit, I had forgotten they were here to hear that as well! I need to come up with something believable and quick. They can't know that we are basically aliens brought here by gods.

"Uh… Shirou and I are from a faraway country called Japan that's really far to the east of here! And it's called western because it's from the west of Japan!" I desperately try to convince them, shooting Shirou a look asking for help.

"If nothing else, we are from the same homeland." He agrees.

Megumin tilts her head. "So you both are from this 'Japan'? That would explain why your names are strange in the same way."

"I don't want to hear that from you." I respond flatly.

"Anyway, Kazuma we still have limited time here today. Let's get back on track." Shirou brings my focus back to what we were doing. "The second thing we need to discuss before you can start practicing is whether you want to use the guild card. Aqua said that for you to learn skills, someone would have to teach you how to use it first. The thing is I'm not sure what counts as taught for the purposes of learning skills, or even how much it would teach you if you bought it. Do you wish to learn without it, or would you like to buy the skill first?"

Learn without buying it…? To be honest, I hadn't even thought of that. "How long do you think it would take for you to teach me? If I could skip a bunch of practice, it would be better to just buy it."

"You misunderstand the question." He shakes his head. "Regardless of whether you use the guild card or not you will need to practice. What I'm asking is if you want to rely on the card or not."

Rely? I'm sure my confusion showed on my face, because after a moment Shirou began expanding on what he meant.

"How best to describe it…? When we were talking about learning skills earlier at the guild, I decided to learn one. I know how to do it now, but not why it works. It's like I was given a sheet of instructions, where if I follow the steps I should get the result that I want, even if I don't know the details of why."

So that's how it worked? I think I get it, what Shirou is worried about is what I would learn if I bought the skill. If I just got the instructions and didn't try to learn more than that, it would be difficult for me to improve. At the same time if all I got from it was the instructions, I could just learn that from him and save my skill points.

Still, since this is the first skill I'm learning I'd like to use the guild card. I liked the idea of learning abilities just like in a video game.

"I understand what you're saying. However I feel that it would probably be easier to learn more about archery if I could do it in the first place. I'll just have to remember there is more to it." I decide. I reach into my pocket and retrieve my guild card. In the section labeled 'Learnable Skills' there were two skills listed.

'Archery' and 'Hawk Eye'

Hawk Eye sounded like an archery skill, but I only had two points available. I probably needed archery first for it anyway. I would have to ask him about what it does later.

I select Archery and my skill points go down by one. I wonder what style I would learn.

Shirou was right, this is weird.

!

Something didn't make sense anymore!

I point a finger at the man in front of me.

"Yesterday you shot a toad from a kilometer away! My effective range is forty meters! How the hell did you do that!?"

I had been so distracted yesterday by the fact Shirou had used a sword instead of an arrow that I hadn't really considered the distance of the shot. I figured it was just the archery skill or perhaps the bow he used, but I knew better now. That shot was even more absurd than I thought!

"Are you still stuck on that? What's far more interesting is that you already know your effective range without ever holding a bow. The bow you use is an important part of how much range your shots have. I wonder, what is telling you your range?" The bastard mused.

"Don't dodge the question!"

"What are you getting upset for? I already told you, that shot wasn't anything special. My range in good conditions with that bow is about four kilometers."

Four kilometers. Was he serious?

Of course he was. He had already proven himself capable of that.

That's… insane.

What kind of overpowered bullshit is that? How is that in anyway fair?

Once more, any understanding I had of his past was ground to dust. This ability was just as inhuman as conjuration. There is no way he was capable of this back on Earth. What the hell is this guy?

Some of the information I had gotten when I learned Archery had been about the normal range of bows.

My range was average, barely enough for this archery range and wouldn't be increasing much anytime soon. Shirou, on the other hand, could snipe someone on the other side of Axel.

My first skill as an adventurer was a joke.

Maybe I should have learned magic instead. That sounded far less headache inducing.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

(Kazuma's POV)

A few hours later we had met back up with Aqua, gathered some supplies to make dinner, and left for the graveyard. We were camped a few minutes away to wait for nightfall. Shirou had started cooking while the girls and I had taken seats on rocks and stumps a ways from him. Whenever he wasn't looking in my direction I took the chance to glare at him.

"Did something happen between Kazuma and Shirou? Kazuma is brooding a lot more than usual." Aqua asks.

Megumin was too focused on the cooking food to notice and after a minute Darkness shrugs. "He's been like that ever since earlier."

I wasn't brooding! I'm trying to spontaneously develop magic powers and light Shirou on fire with my mind.

Maybe I was brooding a little.

This situation was my fault and I knew it, not that it made it any less painful. I had hyped myself up for learning archery, I had been so excited to finally start being an adventurer who could do things. That's why it hurt so much when it turned out as just another thing I was average at.

It wasn't even like there was anything wrong with the Archery skill. Shirou had let me shoot and I was able to hit the targets. We found out I had learned the forms for western style archery from buying the skill. Shirou had even complimented me on how well I was doing. It's just compared to what I had already seen it was really under whelming.

Everything in this world kept turning out like that for me. I had average stats and no skills to speak of, and I could only have the most basic class. Everything I did ended up as mundane, from working as a construction worker in the first week to the community baths to sleeping in the damn stables.

Wasn't this supposed to be a fantasy world? At this point I wouldn't be surprised if even magic ended up dull.

"It's ready, come eat." Shirou calls for us.

How could I stay mad at him when his cooking was the most fantastical thing in this world?

Dinner was a quiet affair, since all of us were too busy eating to talk. The sun began to set and the sky started getting darker. It was a little strange to actually see it happen. Back in Japan I had never just watched a sunset, and here I was always bathing or in the guild hall at this time.

"So you all still insist on doing this?" Shirou asked and when none of us said anything against it he continued. "Very well. Then let's discuss strategy."

"Well we could just move on to any nearby hill, who cares how far away, and just let you snipe them all." I mutter.

"That would be the sane course of action, yes." He agrees.

That was meant to be a jab you idiot.

"But you can't! This is supposed to be my mission, I need to defeat them!" Aqua whines. "Besides, piercing weapons don't work on undead. Archery won't do anything."

"You'd be surprised…"

"Look, Shirou. All we are going to do is go in, see if Aqua can do anything or not and then go from there. We just need to kill a couple of zombies and a zombie maker. This doesn't need to be complicated." I explain.

With how against this he was I was beginning to think he might be jinxing us.

"I can! This will be easy for a goddess like me!" Aqua raised a fist.

He sighs and shakes his head. "You're being far too flippant. Just remember what I told you earlier, if things get dire stay close to me."

Megumin strikes a pose and smirks. "I can't just let you have all the fun. If the undead dare to appear in great numbers, just stay behind me! I, Megumin, will blow them all away with the strongest of magics!"

"Great numbers of undead…? An undead horde…!" Darkness squirms.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Let's just get this over with."

The sun was down now, as we began making our way to the graveyard. Thankfully the moon was bright tonight and we didn't need anything like torches to see. As we got close, Shirou halted us.

"Enemies, five targets visible, one wearing a cloak while the others appear undead. Could be more where I can't see."

He could see them that well? I suppose that shouldn't surprise me considering his absurd ability with archery.

"A cloaked enemy?" Megumin wonders aloud. "Something doesn't seem right. That doesn't sound like a zombie maker."

"The cloaked one is making a magic circle. The other four are just wandering around." He continued to describe.

"Aqua is an Arch-Priest, so we should be fine if it's just undead." Darkness takes out her sword.

"We can't let them finish that circle, it's unlikely to be good for us. Trace on." Shirou's great bow appeared in his hand.

Aqua starts running towards the grave yard. "No! This is my chance to prove I'm useful! Don't you dare take this from me!"

That idiot! What is she doing!?

The bow vanishes and Shirou sprints after her. "Aqua, don't be reckless! There could be traps or more enemies!"

The rest of us could only start running after them ourselves.

Shirou catches her quickly, but the damage had been done. We had made a bunch of noise and I could see the cloaked figure approaching us.

"Who are all of you?" Came a woman's voice from the figure. "What are you doing out here?"

"Lich!" Aqua yells at her. "How dare you appear here!"

Lich? As in the top tier boss undead, Lich? Why the hell was something like that here?

"What is the purpose of that magic circle?" Shirou asks with an intense glare. I had seen him glare before but never like this. I wasn't even the one he was looking at and I felt uncomfortable.

"I-I create it to send restless souls to the afterlife. P-Please, I don't want to fight, I just want to talk." She stammers out.

"To talk…?" He repeats to himself.

Could we trust her? Did we have a choice? I don't think we could fight a lich.

"How arrogant, that isn't the job of a Lich! Watch as a real priest like myself purifies this entire place and you at the same time!" Aqua raises her hands. "Turn Undead!"

A blinding light appeared suddenly from her spreading quickly. I could see the four zombies Shirou had seen earlier vanish entirely, along with a bunch of other blue lights that I could see coming out of the ground. The cloaked woman staggered backwards.

And then it was over. Within a second, Shirou had smacked Aqua's hands down and that ended the spell.

"Ow!" Aqua cries. "Why did you stop me?!"

Well never mind then. I guess we could.

I probably would have stopped her too, if I was close enough. The Lich had just said she didn't want to fight. I'd feel guilty if we attacked someone like that.

Shirou ignored Aqua. "You wanted to talk, so let's talk. Why are you here?"

The woman righted herself and pulled off her hood revealing a beautiful face. Her eyes darted between us, stopping for a second on me before speaking. "Thank you for sparing me, my body was almost purified. My name is Wiz, and I live in Axel. Erm… your friend is right, I am a Lich, an overlord of the undead. Because of that, I can hear these poor people wandering here. So I come here every few days to help the souls of the dead pass on."

Was this woman actually a good person? This isn't what I thought a Lich would be like at all.

"You said the magic circle was for that as well. Do you have any way to prove it?" Shirou continued pushing.

"I'm sorry, that was a powerful spell your friend just cast, I doubt there would be any spirits left for proof. All I can ask is that you believe me…"

Why did I feel like I was looking at a kicked puppy? It was hard to imagine this person doing bad things.

"There were other undead here as well. Did you create them?" Shirou's merciless barrage of questions continued.

"Not intentionally!" Wiz waves her hand in front of her. "As a Lich, souls inside of intact bodies around me automatically revive. I was going to send them to the afterlife too."

Shirou was quiet as he considered this.

Aqua became agitated with his silence. "You can't actually believe her! She's a Lich, just let me cast Turn Undead again!"

I disagreed. "She seems like a normal person. I don't think she's done anything wrong, and if she was helping the dead than we are at fault here…"

Megumin and Darkness shrugged at my sides. I imagine they were just as confused as I was. We had expected a battle not a moral dilemma.

Shirou made up his mind. "I want to see the magic circle. I have some experience with them, so I may be able to work out exactly what it does."

Wiz nods. "That's fine with me. I'll lead you to it." Our group began making our way to where the magic circle was. "About my question earlier, who are all of you? We still haven't been introduced."

I took the opportunity to introduce us. "The guy in red is Shirou, blue is Aqua, yellow Darkness, this little girl is Megumin, and I'm Kazuma."

Huh, I had never noticed how color coded we were before. We just needed some pink clothes for Megumin to complete the set.

"Why am I the little girl?" Megumin says in despair.

Wiz smiled at us. "It's nice to meet you all. Ah, here is the circle." We came into a clearing with a large, almost finished magic circle in the center.

"This is…!" Shirou exclaims. "I do recognize this. It's an exorcism circle I've seen used before by the church. By why…?" He sighs and turns to Wiz. "I'm sorry, this appears to have been a grave misunderstanding." Aqua moved to say something but a glare from him silenced her.

"It's alright, I understand I must have seemed suspicions making a magic circle in a graveyard at night. I'm just glad the church finally sent a group to take care of this graveyard."

"But still, I almost…" Shirou shakes his head. "Anyway you're mistaken. We aren't from the church, we're adventurers."

"Is that true? But, you're wearing a holy shroud and traveling with a Priest and a Crusader… They still really haven't sent anyone?"

Is that what that red thing was Shirou was wearing? I just thought it was some kind of cloak or something. Another thing to ask him later.

Darkness having sheathed her sword joined the conversation. "Why would you be waiting on the church as a Lich?"

Wiz shot a look at Aqua before explaining. "I've been looking after this graveyard for a while now. The priests in town aren't interesting in looking after it because it's for the poor… When I saw you, I had hoped the church in town had finally sent someone to take care of it."

So that's how it was. We all looked at Aqua who started squirming.

"Why are you all looking at me, this isn't my fault! I've only been here a couple weeks, and those priests probably are followers of Eris…"

"We'll take care of it from now on. Aqua is an Arch-Priest, and this isn't far from town." I decide. If we didn't this kind woman might be attacked again by mistake.

"Oh would you? Thank you so much!" She reaches into her cloak and pulls out a business card, which she hands to Shirou. "Here, if you need to find me I run an item shop in town. If you need any help please let me know."

I guess security was a bit lax if a Lich could set up a shop in the city.

"Thank you for all the work you've done for this place. I really can't apologize enough for earlier." Shirou says solemnly.

"It was the least I could do." She smiles softly. "If there isn't anything else, I'd like to head back. I have to open shop in the morning."

With that, we said our good byes and she left.

After a moment, Megumin spoke up. "So what about the quest? There wasn't a Zombie Maker to defeat."

Well it can't be helped. We'd just have to say we couldn't do it. Damn it, we really needed the money too.

"I'll speak with the other staff. Aqua should have some undead listed, and I can arrange for a scout to prove the graveyard is clear. I'll just say there wasn't a Zombie Maker here and if there are no more problems, we'll get the reward." Shirou saved our quest.

It seems a little dirty, but having a party member in the staff has paid off.

- **God's Merciful Gift Upon This Undeserving Hero-**

 **Another chapter down! I know I said a week last time, but it ended up being three… Everything just seemed to keep happening at once. At least this is basically a double chapter, since the average one is about 5000-6000 words and this is 9000. I'm sorry, but rest assured I have no intentions of dropping this fic. I'll update whenever I can.**

 **So I'll take some time to address some reviews like I usually do. On Shirou's appearance, he doesn't look like he does in high school. The way I imagine him is in his early twenties, basically how Archer looks but with red hair still and untanned. I probably should have been clearer on that, and will likely add a better description in an earlier chapter since doing it now would be a little weird.**

 **Shout out to Mingyu for guessing closest to the skill Shirou would learn first. When thinking about what he could learn, it occurred to me that learning Heal would be incredibly significant to him. I hope I made the moment touching enough, that was probably what I spent the most amount of time working on.**

 **On the straight man trope that a few people mention, Kazuma and Shirou serve that role in different ways. Shirou is far more accepting of extreme feats and magical abilities, but takes combat far more seriously, while Kazuma is the opposite.**

 **Let's take some time to talk about design. I received a lengthy review on criticism for this fic and I really appreciate that. I'm a novice writer, and stuff like this really helps me put things in perspective and consider things I might otherwise miss. The first part talked about the clash between Shirou and the characters, and how it doesn't work for the tone I've gone with. Unfortunately there isn't really much I can do on that. If you think a cynical Shirou isn't funny, and I've failed to convince you with my story telling then all I can do is apologize. I think it's funny and fits well and that's why I went with it. Perhaps there was some better word choice I could use or some extra jokes I could make to make it work, but I don't know how and that's my fault as a novice writer.**

 **The second major point is POV, and how it's strange to change it mid chapter in first person. I understand this criticism well, so let me try to explain why I do it that way. Both Fate/Stay Night and Konosuba are written in first person, so naturally I thought it would make more sense to do the same instead of third person. From there, since Shirou and Kazuma are both protagonists** **, I felt it was important to be able to follow both of them for plot and character development reasons. At the same time that also means they are likely to be the only two perspectives the reader sees, with maybe an occasional extra one if the situation demands it. The problem then comes when a scene happens where the other doesn't know what is happening. For example, in this chapter Kazuma doesn't know Shirou talked with Luna in the morning or that learning Heal was important to Shirou or even that he learned Heal. Shirou doesn't understand why Kazuma became depressed during training and so on. This means I need to switch perspectives for the readers to get the full story.**

 **There are a couple solutions. Releasing shorter chapters that only go until there is a perspective shift is an option, but I dislike it because I feel it could lead to unfinished feeling chapters. I could hold it to release the entire chapter at once, but releasing several chapters at once seems wrong somehow and it would barely be different from this. I could also just focus on one person per chapter, but as with the example that means missing character development and things that character isn't there for. That's why I've done it this way. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this problem.**

 ****Edit2: I've removed the extra paragraph on skills and the point costs. I realized that it really doesn't matter and just serves to make people upset I changed it.**

 ****Edit: A review pointed out something else I forgot to talk about here, the archery. I'm not an archer, nor have I ever used a bow. The information I presented was my best try at summarizing what the styles are good at. I browsed forums, watched youtube videos, and looked on wikis, but I fully** **acknowledge I could be wildly wrong. I had to have some kind of explination though for archery since Shirou was teaching it, and while there are only a couple paragraphs on it I realize some people know way more than me about archery and would find it off. I tried my best, but this stuff is complicated and not nearly as easy to research as I would wish. If someone really knows about this stuff and wants to share to correct what I got wrong, I'm willing to go back and change it, but know that we'll never really get a deeper discussion on archery than this in this fic.**

 **Lastly does anyone play Fate/Grand Order? I know that's kinda not related, but with the Extra CCC event just around the corner I'm looking to fill out my friends list since I have like 45 open slots. Doesn't matter if you're new or a vet. I'll post on my profile more about that if you are interested.**

 **Thank you for tolerating my story!**


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